God Speaking

“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.”

(1 Thessalonians 3: 12)

Just recently my husband and I were watching an amazing performance on the TV of a young husband and wife playing two pianos at the same time in perfect unison. They seemed to be playing effortlessly and what is more astounding, the audience, could forward requests though an usher, of songs they would like to hear. Their gift of being able to play spontaneously these requests was further evidence of their skill.  I would have loved to be able to play the piano and envied their gift, but when I thought of how this performance, could only have been perfected by hours of practice, I admired them more for not just the gift, but for the effort they must have put into perfecting the gift.

I then began to think about the gifts God gives to each one of his children and how they can remain dormant unless we put a lot of effort into perfecting them, one such gift is the gift of love.  God has gifted us with a great outpouring of his love, this comes with no cost to us, but as Paul reminds us it needs effort on our part to make it a gift back to him;

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” (2 Timothy 1: 6)

How to make God’s incredible gift, a gift back to him?

Paul had a beautiful prayer for the followers in Thessalonica and a great example for them to follow when he prayed for the Lord to increase their love to overflowing. We can do exactly that; pray for the Lord to help us to love others. I was reading an interesting article about this theme and one lady remarked that as she grew closer to the Lord she noticed, “I believe the new thing God is doing in my life is expanding my capacity and opportunities to love.”

Loving those who are lovable and love us, is easy, but loving somebody is sometimes difficult, but when we ask the Lord to expand his gift to us, he willingly does, and as this lady found out he also provides opportunities to practice the gift.

When we think back to those young piano players, we realise that a lot of hard work had preceded their amazing performance, and they must have had to work together to perfect their skill we need to spend a lot of time with the Lord to perfect our love for others.

If we look up the word, love, in a concordance, we find pages of verses containing what is really the basis of Scripture. If we note the number of times Jesus impressed the importance on his disciples of, loving, we can also see how important it was for him to leave this message firmly in the hearts of those who were to carry it to the world for him.

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15: 12)