Labor of love
“We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you” (1 Thessalonians 1:3-4).
There is joy when I love. There is a joy that the Lord gives when I love my neighbor with His love. There is joy of fellowship in sharing and in giving within the loving members of the Lord. In particular, I have joy of sharing God's love through heart to heart conversations with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Also, the Lord has given me the joy of meditating on God's Word and sharing my quite time meditation writings with other. However, I still have not tasted the joy of obeying the commandment of Jesus, “Love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44). Maybe it's because there is no enemy I think yet in my personal relationship. But even if it is not the enemy, I want to taste the joy of the Lord by loving those people who give me hard times and those who hurts my heart. I want to experience the divine joy of the Lord in full. So I sometimes praise this hymn “Jesus Comes With Pow’r to Gladden”: (1) “Jesus comes with pow'r to glad-den, When love shines in, Ev'ry life that woe can sadden, When love shines in. Love will teach us how to pray, Love will drive the gloom away, Turn our darkness into day, When love shines in. When love shines in, When love shines in, How the heart is tuned to singing, When love shines in, When love shines in, When love shines in, Joy and peace to others bringing When love shines in (Internet). I hope and pray that we may love our neighbors with His love and enjoy His joy in full.
When we look at 1 Thessalonians 1:3, Paul mentioned about the Thessalonians church saints’ labor of love as he and his co-workers Silas and Timothy (v. 1) remembered them in their prayers and thanked God (v. 2). After I read verses 1 through 3 and read verse 4, I got an answer to the question ‘How could Paul know about the Thessalonians church saints’ labor of love. And the answer is “God’s love”. In other words, the Thessalonian church saints were able to do the labor of love because they were being loved by God (v. 4). And the love of God they received was the love that God chose them (v. 4), that was God’s chosen or electing love. Among the multitude of people, God loved the Thessalonians church saints so He chose them in Him before the creation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:4). In other words, God who loved the Thessalonians church saints foreknew and predestined them (Rom. 8:29-30; Eph. 1:4-5), called them, sanctify them by the Holy Spirit and regenerated them by giving them grace of repentance and the truth to believe in Him (conversion) (2 Thess. 2:13-14), that is salvation. This is what the Westminster Confession of Faith says about effectual calling: “All those whom God hath predestined unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace” (WCF). Therefore, since the Thessalonian church saints were loved by the Lord with the wonderful and amazing love of God (1 Thess. 1:4), they were able to love each other as they had been taught by God (4:9). In fact, they loved all the brothers throughout Macedonia (v. 10). Then what was the “labor of love” that they practiced (1:3)? As Paul exhorted them, they strove to live a quiet life, to mind their own business and to work with their hands (4:11). And they encouraged one another (v. 18). They also "encouraged one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (v. 11). They respected those who worked hard among them, who were over them in the Lord and who admonished them (v. 12). They held them in the highest regard in love because of their work (v. 13). They warned those who were idle, encouraged the timid, helped the weak, and were patient with everyone (v. 14). They didn’t pay back wrong for wrong, but always tried to be kind to each other and to everyone else (v. 15). They always had pleasant memories of Paul and his co-workers and they longed to see them (3:6). Paul, who continually remembered the Thessalonians church saints’ labor of love before God and Father (1:3) and always thanked God for all of them (v. 2), said in 2:8 – “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” In this verse, I have meditated on Paul's labor of love toward the Thessalonians church saints. In other words, Paul’s labor of love toward them was giving not only the gospel of God but his life as well (v. 8). When I meditated on this Paul's labor of love, I remembered John 10, which I meditated on at the early Morning Prayer meeting. The key point of John 10 is that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, laid down his life for the sheep (Jn. 10:11, 15, 17). Jesus' labor of love, which He gave His life on the cross for such sinners like us, was Paul’s labor of love. And in Paul’s labor of love, Apostle Paul was delighted to give his own life to the Thessalonians church saints (1 Thess. 2:8). If Paul had that delight, I am sure Jesus was much more delighted in giving His own life on the cross for us, whom God loved and chose. This reminds me Zephaniah 3:17 – “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” I think Jesus, who takes great delight in us and who rejoices over us, was very delighted to give His precious life on the cross for us and our salvation. Although He cried on the cross to his Heavenly Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46) and went through extreme suffering that I cannot comprehend even a little bit, I am sure Jesus was extremely delighted to die on the cross for us. As Jesus had done this labor of love, Apostle Paul imitated His labor of love and loved the Thessalonians church saints so much that he was delighted to give his life to them (1 Thess. 2:8). And I think the Thessalonians church saints imitated Paul who imitated Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 11:1) and they also did the labor of love in giving not only the gospel but their lives as well.
We all need to labor in love as God's loving ones. We are those who have been chosen in love by God the Father. We are the ones who have received the love from the Son of God Jesus who was delighted to give His own life for us on the cross. God the Holy Spirit still dwells in us and is bearing the fruit of love (Gal. 5:22). Thus we are all those who have received the love of the Triune God. Therefore, with the love of God, we must do the labor of love like the saints of the Thessalonians church. May the Lord make us to love our neighbors with His love, in giving not only the gospel of Jesus Christ but also our lives as well.