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Increase and Abound
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:"
In a day when mediocrity is acceptable, God in His holy Word commands the Christian to "increase and abound." God is not a mediocre God. When you study the Scriptures, you will find that God is a God of excellence. In the verse above, He commands the Christian to "increase and abound." The word "abound" means "to possess in great quantity. Several times in the Scriptures God commands us to abound, or to have a great quantity of something.
First, in the verse above, God commands us to "...abound in love one toward another..." In other words, God does not want Christians to be people who lack in the area of love. Loving people is not determined by others, but loving people is a choice. You choose whom to love. You don't love people because of their status or their appearance, but you love people because you choose to love them. You shouldn't love people because of what they do for you and how they please you, but you should love people because they need to be loved. Your love for people should never be lacking. You should always have an abundance of love stored up so that you can love others.
Second, in 2 Corinthians 8:7, God commands us to abound in faith. Your faith in God should never be lacking. Whenever God commands you to do something, your faith should be such that you immediately obey. The only way you are going to abound in faith is through hearing and doing what God's Word tells you to do. According to Romans 10:17, "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Your faith will never abound unless you hear God's Word preached and read It daily.
Third, God commands in 2 Corinthians 8:7 to abound in knowledge. Yes, we should be a knowledgeable people. I believe we should not just be knowledgeable about the Word of God, though if that is all the knowledge you have you will succeed, but you should also be knowledgeable about life. What I mean by this is you should know what is going on in the world's affairs so that you can be a better witness to others. When you abound in knowledge, you will have a better chance of witnessing to all classes of people.
Fourth, in 2 Corinthians 8:7, God commands you to abound in grace. I like to say that when God talks about people having grace that He is talking about having people skills. Listen, you don't have to be a jerk to be a Christian. You should abound in grace, or people skills, so that you can live peaceably with all men. When you abound in grace, you will be able to get along with obstinate people as well.
Do you abound in these areas? Work hard in each of these areas to abound so that you can be the Christian that God wants you to be. Ask God to help you to abound. God is the master of all of these areas, and He can certainly teach you and help you to abound if you are willing to let Him help you.