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

I am thinking of the once popular Christian camp tune “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Sadly in many churches and communities that is not the case at all. When I first became a Christian, someone said this about another Believer, ”I know I have to love him but I don’t have to like him.” I stopped short of asking for Chapter and Verse on that one!

I also think of the many denominations we have in the West that just do not get along. Often the theological differences are small and probably insignificant. It’s not that we don’t love the Presbyterians or Baptists or Pentecostals down the street, we just don’t talk to them regularly. I know it can be done because I’ve seen it. Where? Overseas on the foreign field, Southern Baptists and Assembly of God folks worked side by side to build the Kingdom of God (and probably unbeknownst to their superiors Stateside).

My point is this, I think we all benefit by praying this prayer for ourselves as often as we can. Then we can ask God to examine us to see where there might be obstacles in our love towards other Believers..