Word of Encouragement (6/9/2021)
We are reflecting on Paul’s prayer in 1 Thess. 1:2-3: “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yesterday, we talked about the Thessalonians’ work of faith for which Paul gives thanks. Today, we will reflect on their labor of love.
Love is central to Christianity. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37-39). We can say that all God’s commandments are ultimately about loving God and loving our neighbors. We can also say that love is the greatest among all Christian virtues: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
If love is so central, it is because God is love (1 John 4:8). God is love because He is full of love in His being, that mysterious feeling of warm welcome, delight, goodwill, self-giving. But God is love also because He is a triune God—on God in three Persons in a divine community, a community of love—a love that is pure, perfect, boundless, and eternal. God’s love is not just a feeling He feels in Himself. Even before He created anything, the love of God was a dynamic, relational force, not confined to His heart, swelling and swirling only within Himself, but freely expressed and fully directed to one other in that trinitarian community. God’s love is not just emotional; it is also relational. And we are made in the image of God, who is love.
When God directs His love toward needy creatures like us, it must be active: He cannot just feel love within Himself; He must act out His love to accomplish His good purpose for His people. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Our love toward one another should be active as well.
Paul was delighted to see the Thessalonians’ labor of love. “Labor of love.” What an apt expression! Love is what makes us go the extra mile, willing to do things that are difficult and burdensome for the other, things that make other people shake their heads in unbelief, asking, “How can he do that for her?” “How can she bear all that for him?” Love is what makes us sweat and toil and labor for the good of others with a smile on our face and a song in our hearts. When we truly love someone else, we are ready to labor and willing to make sacrifices for the other.
This is not to say that, if we truly love someone, our labor of love will feel just like a play. Jesus had compassion on the sick, the demon-possessed, the downtrodden, the neglected. He taught and ministered to them day in and day out. But it was not just a play. He often felt grieved. He wept. And at times He was so exhausted from His ministry that even a storm could not wake Him up while He slept on a boat. He would never run away from the path of the cross. He died on the cross, not because He was powerless to come down from it, but because there was no other way to save us: He would rather die than live without us (Michael Card). Yet, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed till His sweat turned to blood, asking the Father whether there was another way to save His people. Even for Him, going to the cross was not “easy.” Remember His desperate prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane? Love may make the burden of its labor feel lighter but it doesn’t take away any of its full weight.
Was there something extraordinary about the Thessalonians that Paul praised them for their labor of love? There is no doubt that his generous praise indicates that they excelled in this virtue. But this virtue was not something they created on their own. It was the only proper response to what happened to them. They were touched by God’s amazing love, redeemed by Christ’s intense labor of love. Can we be loved by the most radical love of Christ and not be affected by it in the most profound way? It is only right that we reciprocate it with love, expressing itself in sacrificial labor of love, for God and for our fellow human beings. May God increase our labor of love as we abide in His love for us!