Good Morning! This week we are taking a closer look at holiness being linked with blamelessness in the New Testament.

    Please read and consider this passage: 

“…may the Lord make you increase and abound in love

 to one another and to all… that He may establish your 

hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father 

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” 

(1 Thessalonians 3:13-14, NKJV)

    Paul’s prayer for the church in Thessalonica was that they would maintain their faith (3:1-10) and that God would make them increase and abound in love.

    In 2 Corinthians 9:8 we can read that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good work.”

    God can give an increase in all things. Through obedience of His commands – doing it His way – we can increase our love towards others because He instructs us to love and esteem others (Matthew 22:36-40, Romans 12:9-10, Galatians 6:10, Philippians 2:1-4).

    Paul asked for this increase so that God could establish their hearts blameless in holiness, which basically means blameless in blamelessness. Sounds a lot like the phrase: “without spot or blemish,” doesn’t it?

    The Aramaic Bible in Plain English reads: “…establish your hearts without a fault in holiness before God Our Father.”

    Holiness is a vital topic. It is an attribute we absolutely must strive for and maintain in our lives - “without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14)

    We simply must continue to grow and develop as a Christian! It is necessary that we increase in all areas – faith/trust, love, holiness, and hope. We cannot be satisfied with what we think we have already attained, or rest on the self-given laurels of what we did at the “peak” of our zeal, which, for some, may have been long years past.   

    Let God make you increase and abound in love so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness!

You can do it! So can I!!