With All His Saints

“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all people, even as we do toward you: to the end that He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:12,13).

The great divide between good and evil, light and darkness, love and hate, grows even wider. Our hearts are broken at the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. But we do not sorrow like those who have no hope. Charlie is with the Lord whom he loved and served. He will return at the Rapture with the “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone to Heaven before us, when Jesus returns to gather His Church.

For those who love Christ, “the love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” The Christian can “increase and overflow” in love because our Source is from Heaven. While the world grows in hatred and stores up for itself the wrath of God, Jesus said the Believer remains a source of “living water” to the world by sharing His love and His truth (John 7:38).

What the devil intends for evil, God will turn for good. The Cross didn’t stop Jesus. The fires of persecution didn’t stop the Spirit-driven Church. And hatred will not stop the spread of the Gospel of the love of God; it will amplify it. May we, in our own races to run, and our own Gospel-torches to carry, run more zealously and hold our own torches even higher, until the Trumpet of Christ’s return sounds.

(Devotional by Lisa Cataford)