We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
-I Thessalonians 1:2, 3
Unlike the Galatians, Paul had serious praise for the believers in Thessalonica. The Galatians were plagued by heresy and doctrinal problems. The Thessalonians to whom Paul was writing had overcome these challenges and were walking firmly in Christ. They were standing firm in the faith and were not backing down from it. Therefore Paul and the others thanked God continually for them. Is there someone that you daily thank God for? It might be a relative, a loved one, or a friend, but you frequently thank God for this person’s faith because it is a blessing and an encouragement to you.
Paul was thanking God because their faith was growing continuously. They were not faltering the faith, but instead they were growing deeper in their faith. That is what we are to be doing. We are called in scripture to be ever growing closer to the Lord. We cannot do that apart from a growing faith. It says here that their faith was growing exceedingly. That means that their faith was growing more and more all the time.
They had something else going for them. Their love for one another was growing greater all the time as well. If we will love one another more, then our love will spill over into the community and we will love lost people more. And if we love them more we will be more concerned with their spiritual condition. Let that be said of us. In a time when peoples’ faith in diminishing, let us have faith and love that is growing.
