May our Faith Grow and our Love for one Another Increase until we become Overcomers!

May our faith grow and may our love for one another increase until we become the Lord’s overcomers!

In 2 Thes. 1:3 Paul commended the Thessalonians by telling them that their faith grows exceedingly and the love of each one of them to one another is increasing; faith and love go together and are indispensable for our going on with the Lord and in the church life. Amen!

This week we come to a new morning revival, the one on 2022 fall ITERO, with the title, Loving the Lord and loving one another for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

This first week the topic is, Loving the Lord and loving one another – the most excellent way for us to be anything and do anything for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

It is a blessing for us to have the Lord’s speaking day after day. We need to learn to love the Lord and love the brother.

The love of God needs to be perfected in us and we need to be perfected in this love.

We need to be perfected to love the Lord and love the brothers, and we need to be perfected in the Lord’s love.

This is not our emotional love, our human love, or even an elementary love for the Lord Jesus, as precious as that may be.

May the Lord renew our concept and our thinking concerning loving the Lord and loving the brothers.

We need to acquire the divine concept and a deeper knowledge of the Lord’s love so that we may realize that we are woefully short of love toward the Lord and toward others.

We need agape love, the divine love of God, which is the top virtue of God Himself. God is love. Love is simply the most inward essence of God.

When we get into the depths of what God is, we realize that He is love.

Anyone can talk about love and tell us this and that about love, but we need to be trained to know love in a deeper, higher, more intrinsic way, so that we may even become love.

We not only want to learn to love the Lord and see our need to love the brothers, but be infused with God as love and become love itself.

We need to not only love the Lord and be able to love the brothers and all the sinners but also become love itself and, together, we become the testimony of Jesus, the testimony of love.

May we not consider love in a cheap way, in a worldly way, as a kind of romantic love in an outward or worldly way.

May we really be open to the Lord and admit before Him that we don’t know what love is; may we just open to Him to be taught, perfected, and brought deeper with Him to know Him as love.

May we know the divine love and pursue the divine love in a higher and deeper way.

May our Faith Grow and our Love for one another Increase

Faith and love are two inseparable virtues of the believers; we cannot have one without the other.

Faith is infused into us by God as we come to Him and enjoy Him; when He shines on us and speaks to us, He infuses Himself as faith into us.

In 2 Thes. 1:3 Paul commends the Thessalonians by telling them, “Your faith grows exceedingly and the love of each one of you all to one another is increasing.”

We have received faith and love at the time of our regeneration, but now our faith and love need to grow.

May our faith grow and may our love for one another increase.

The faith needs to grow exceedingly and the love for one another needs to increase.

Every day, every year, something must expand in us, grow in us – our faith and our love need to grow and expand.

Our believing ability and our loving ability should always be enlarged and growing.

To believe in the Lord is to receive Him as life, and to love the Lord is to enjoy Him as the very person we have received.

Faith is not of ourselves; faith is given to us by God so that by it we may receive Christ as our life (2 Pet. 1:1; Heb. 12:1-2a; 2 Cor. 4:13; Gal. 5:6; John 1:12-13; 21:15-17; Col. 3:4).

Love issues out of such a wonderful faith and enables us to live out all the riches of the Triune God in Christ as our life.

Through faith, we receive the Lord; through love, we enjoy the Lord whom we have received.

The subjective faith is the act of believing; such faith brings us into an organic union with the Lord and operates through love (Gal. 5:6).

In the element and operation of such faith the saints who are one with the Lord care for one another and for the Lord’s interest on the earth.

May our faith grow and may our love for one another increase day by day.

Faith and love are two inseparable and excellent virtues of the believers in Christ.

Through the faith that we receive from God, we receive Christ and enter into the Triune God to be joined to Him as one, having Him as our life, life supply, and everything.

Out of such a wonderful faith issues love; this love enables us to enjoy the Lord and live out all the riches of the Triune God with those who have believed into Christ with us, so that the Triune God may have a glorious expression.

Faith is not subscribing to a certain set of beliefs or doctrines; faith is an organic union with the Lord, and faith comes through hearing the word of God.

We believe not in a set of doctrines but into Christ, a living person.

Love issues out of our faith in Christ and enables us to love the Lord, enjoy Him, and live out the riches of the Triune God in Christ as our life.

To the apostle Paul the grace of the Lord “superabounded with faith and love in Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 4:14); through faith, we receive the Lord (John 1:12), and through love, we enjoy the Lord whom we have received (14:21, 23; 21:15-17).

The grace of the Lord exceedingly abounded with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Faith and love are the way that grace is transmitted to us.

When grace comes to us, faith and love also come to us. Faith and love are the sign of grace coming to us.

When we receive a lot of grace, this means that our faith is growing and our love is abounding and increasing.

Through faith, we receive the Lord and through love, we enjoy the Lord whom we have received.

Lord Jesus, may our faith grow exceedingly and our love for one another increase! Infuse us with Yourself as faith. We open to You, Lord, to believe into You, receive You, and love You. Infuse us with more faith so that we may receive more of Christ as our life. May our love increase so that we may enjoy all the riches of Christ and live Christ for the testimony of Jesus in our daily life. Oh Lord, may our believing and loving ability always be enlarged and growing! We want to not only believe into You but also love You to enjoy all your riches. May love issue out of the wonderful faith to enable us to live out all the riches of the Triune God as our life!

In Faith and by Love we Love the Lord and the Saints and we become the Lord’s Overcomers

Faith and love are essential to us in our Christian life; they are equally important, and they are both of God, who infuses Himself into us as faith and pours out His love into our hearts.

The wonderful faith and the super-excellent love are out of the Triune God; He earnestly desires to be joined to us to be our everything.

As we contact the Triune God through prayer, by looking to Him, with the exercise of our spirit, He infuses Himself into us in many ways to become the faith and love within us.

As we spend time with the Lord daily, He infuses Himself into us to become the faith within us toward Him and the love outside of us toward those who belong to Him.

In this wonderful faith and by this super-excellent love of the Triune God, we love the Lord and those who belong to Him. Hallelujah!

Such faith and such love are the reality and expression (1 John 4:8, 16) of the Triune God in whom we believe and whom we worship and receive.

We believe into the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – and we spend time with Him; in this way, He infuses Himself into us to become our faith and love with which we believe into Him and love Him and the saints.

Faith and love are connected and go together: love comes from faith and faith operates and works through love (Gal. 5:6).

Love with faith enables us to love the Lord in incorruptibility so that we may have an overcoming church life (Eph. 6:23-24).

This is so for the fulfilment of God’s New Testament economy in Christ for the church.

It is in faith that we are pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6) and in love that we are blessed of the Lord (1 Cor. 16:22).

In faith and by love we love the Lord and the saints, and we become the Lord’s overcomers.

Only in faith and by love can we become, in the current of the church’s degradation, the overcomers whom the Lord is calling and desiring to obtain in Revelation 2 and 3.

Speaking of love, Paul mentions lovers of God, lovers of good, lovers of money, lovers of the self, and lovers of the pleasures in 2 Timothy.

First, we need to love God and love god, and the three love not’s refer to not loving the self, loving money, and loving pleasures.

Whatever one loves, his whole heart, even his entire being, is set and occupied and possessed by that thing.

We need to give ourselves to love God and His people, not love other things besides Him.

Whether today is a day of glory in the history of the church or a terrible day of the church’s decline depends altogether on what kind of lovers we are.

What kind of lovers are we? What do we love? The root of the decline of the church is loving something else besides the Lord and not loving Him with the first love.

May we come to the Lord, again and again, to be infused with Him as our faith and be filled with Him as love.

May our love grow exceedingly and may our love increase toward the Lord and toward one another.

May we be filled with the wonderful faith and the super-excellent love of the Triune God day by day, month by month, and year by year, so that we may become the overcomers that the Lord is calling and desiring to obtain today!

Lord Jesus, we come to You and we open to Your infusing! Infuse us with Yourself as faith; become the wonderful faith in us by which we believe into the Lord and receive Him. Infuse us with Yourself as love; become the love in us with which we love the Lord and we love the brothers. Oh Lord, we exercise our spirit to receive Christ by faith and to love the Lord and all those who belong to Him in love! Amen, Lord, we want to become the overcomers whom the Lord is calling and desiring to obtain in this age today. Save us from being lovers of the self, lovers of money, and lovers of pleasures. May we be those who love God and love good. Save us from being swept away in the current of the church’s degradation; make us the overcomers who live in faith and by love today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message, and portions from, Titus 3:15, footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Loving the Lord and loving one another for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (2022 fall ITERO), week 1, entitled, Loving the Lord and loving one another – the most excellent way for us to be anything and do anything for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Now my love for the brothers abounds more and more / By saying Amen to God’s Word. / And I’m being related as never before / By saying Amen to His Word. / By saying Amen to His Word, / By saying Amen to His Word, / Thus the Lord takes my heart, and transforms every part, / By saying Amen to His Word. (Hymns #1219 stanza 5 and chorus)
  – Our first reflection of this element / Reflected Jesus back to God, Who sent / His own response to count as righteousness / Our faith in Him Who was infused in us. / But we would hold to this reality, / Our Jesus Christ in us our all to be, / Enjoying all He is abundantly, / Content to have this One eternally. (Hymns #1202 stanzas 4 and 5)
  – Will you be an overcomer? / To the Lord be drawn! / Keep the “first love,” never leave it, / Till the break of dawn. / Will you be an overcomer? / On His life depend! / Dare to suffer persecution, / Faithful to the end. (Hymns #894 stanzas 2-3)