1 Thessalonians 3:12-13
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love” goes a popular song from the sixties. The apostle Paul would have agreed with at least the opening line as he exhorted the church at Thessalonica to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” On Sunday mornings I experience that love and the joy that accompanies it as we worship together.
But love is not really love until we express it by our actions. What does love in action look like?
It’s that check you wrote to Week of Compassion, the meal you prepared for Room in the Inn. It’s the note you wrote to someone fighting a serious illness or to someone who has lost a loved one. It’s the protest you made to some injustice in the world. And it’s even the smile you gave a perfect stranger on your walk because the day was beautiful and because it was good for both of you to be alive to enjoy it.
But what does love have to do with holiness? Everything. To find the strength to do God’s will, to follow his Son, Jesus Christ, requires that we love God “with all [our] heart, and with all [our] soul, and with all [our] strength.” (And don’t forget the part about “your neighbor as yourself.”)
~ Sara Tarpley