1 Thessalonians 3:12
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
It is a prayer that the Lord Himself causes believers to keep growing and overflowing in love, and that same work is sought for believers now. That love is directed both to one another within the church and to all people outside it, acknowledging no walls of partition. It must increase more and more without stopping, for spiritual life is ongoing and when growth ceases love leaves the heart. Its purpose is to establish hearts firm and blameless in holiness before God the Father at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all His saints. Such increasing love is the evidence of true conversion, learned from the Father's self-sacrificing goodness in giving His Son, which melts harshness, breaks down barriers between brethren, and changes the beholder into Christ's image.
Growing Love Described
The verse is a prayer that the Lord Himself cause believers to increase and overflow in love, and that same work is desired for believers now. To increase and abound means love must keep growing and overflowing within the church and outward to all people. Spiritual growth is ongoing, so unless believers abound more and more in the love of God they lose what they have already gained, and when they stop growing love leaves the heart.
The love is directed both one toward another among fellow believers and toward all men outside, acknowledging no walls of partition. It reaches high and low, rich and poor, and is shown in receiving one another as sister and brother. The pattern is even as we do toward you, following the example of the apostles' love for them, after Paul and his companions' love and the apostle's own love toward them.
This love is learned from the Father's self-sacrificing goodness in giving His Son and then imparted to others in sympathy, wisdom and grace. Contemplating Christ softens the heart, melts harshness of nature, and breaks down every barrier between brethren. It refines and purifies character in the furnace, puts the law of kindness on the lips, and changes the beholder into Christ's image by faith that works by love and purifies the soul.
The growth belongs to one who comes to Jesus just as they are, with humility of mind and contrition of soul in expressed penitence, and who makes a vigilant, earnest, persevering effort to serve God. It is carried by humble and contrite workers, not by eloquence nor by the dignified and self-sufficient. Among those workers are consecrated women given an open door to enter the field.
Holiness for Christ's Coming
The increase and overflow of love toward fellow believers and toward all people is given to make hearts firm and to establish them blameless and unblameable in holiness before God the Father at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. That coming is the stated end and purpose joined to the prayer for love in the next verse, and the same establishing work is desired for believers now. Such ever-increasing love is evidence of true conversion and belongs with the hope of Christ's coming.
Character and holiness are determined by the law of God, which is the detector of sin, for the law does not create holiness but makes holiness known. Holiness is perfect happiness and sin is perfect misery. The love required is love to God with all the heart and love to neighbor as self, which was not made when the law was given but only proclaimed. That proclamation is mercy and goodness itself, testifying what the Creator has ever required and will ever require, perfect obedience to His law, whose violation by Adam brought sin into the world. At that coming, those thus established are the hope and joy and crown of rejoicing.