When Your Faith Grows, What Else Grows?

2 Thessalonians 1:3
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.

New Living Translation
Dear brothers and sisters, we can’t help but thank God for you, because your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing.

Good News Translation
Our friends, we must thank God at all times for you. It is right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love each of you has for the others is becoming greater.

This is Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church of the Thessalonians. He writes this letter together with Timothy and Silas, that is why he uses the word we. He praises the Thessalonians because of their spiritual growth. He thanks God because the church is making progress. The progress he is talking about is not buying property and developing them in a state-of-the-art fashion, no. He is talking about their spiritual growth. Development is good but it should be secondary to spiritual growth.

We should buy the property and develop mega postmodern structures that are highly attractive and of high cost. However, the highlight of our reporting should be what concerned Apostles – spiritual growth. Before we show excessive concern for physical and infrastructure development, we must show in an elaborate and detailed way how people are growing spiritually. We must report with an unhidden passion that spiritual growth is our interest in religious affairs. That is why we meet Paul dedicating his letter to address spiritual growth.

If we are doing more fundraising than evangelism, then we have a problem. If we put the best brains where funds are raised and then we appoint anyone to lead evangelism, we should be concerned. If the most efforts in a congregation and its parish concerns are raising funds with a passing unemphasised mention of spiritual growth, we should be very worried for we are no longer a church. If what we are proud to report is the acquisition of facilities and not practicable spiritual growth, we should panic for we are bewitched by lucre.

May God grant it that someday, churches will be glad to report in detail and with passion evidence of spiritual growth. We are glad to report that the families that used to incessantly quarrel at this church have openly confessed their sins and reconciled before the whole church and shared a special Holy Communion. We are glad to report that during the height of the Covid Pandemic the poorest in our church and those who lost business and jobs were fully catered for by volunteers and church budget, without having to announce it or take pictures to embarrass them and make ourselves proud. We are glad to report that fifty percent of our members now pray and study the Bible daily. Spiritual growth should be the longest report and most passionate from any group of believers.

Paul tells the Thessalonians that their faith has grown. Paul and company are very happy to report that the faith of the church of the Thessalonians has grown. Did they have land? We don’t know. Did they have cathedrals and a state-of-the-art Public Address System? We don’t know. What we know is that their faith was growing. How much money were they collecting every time they came to worship? We don’t know. What we know and what matters is that their faith was growing. Our present-day congregations are the opposite. We know their land, their buildings, their technology gadgets and facilities, and even what they collect during worship, but we know nothing about their faith growth.

Paul and company report that as the faith of the Thessalonians grows their love for one another is growing. What Paul is telling us is that your faith cannot grow and you still have unsettled issues with your church mates, neighbors, relatives, family, colleagues, etc. Faith growth consequently affects relationships. As we grow in our faith we love each other much more.

Faith is not just abstract it becomes real in the consequences that follow the life of the person who has faith. Faith takes over a person and he who couldn’t forgive forgives. She who couldn’t reconcile reconciles. If you have faith growing, your relationships get better. Faith doesn’t change the other person, it changes you.

Romans 12:18
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

What depends on us in our relationship with others must change for the better as our faith grows. The best way to handle strained relationships is for one person to decide that things can and should change. The person of faith is that person who swallows pride and accepts to make the requisite changes. Therefore as faith grows, the relationships with others grow because it depends on you, not the other person.

1 John 4:20
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

The love for one another tells us more than we thought it could. To love God and not love people is to love God in a fake way. True love for God is demonstrated in our love for people. As faith grows and we love God more, it translates seamlessly to our love for one another. Growth of faith is the growth of our love for one another. A church with wrangles and tension is a church with no faith and masquerading with a fake love for God.

May my faith grow and be reflected in the growth of how I love others, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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