Growing Faith, Increasing Love - Wednesday December 16, 2015
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 NIV
Recently, I had the privilege of going on the "Core Retreat" with our Salt Lake City location. That time together was tremendous. For two nights and three days nearly 100 people gathered in the mountains for a time of connecting with each other, worshipping together, learning together, hiking together, playing paint ball together, and even watching the kiddos brave a huge "slip-n-side" down the mountainside-together!
It's hard to measure the value of that retreat. Only God knows how precious those times together are. In our culture today we tend to measure success by immediate results and attainable goals. But it's hard to apply worldly measures to the Kingdom of God.
I appreciate how the verse above speaks to our "growing faith" and "increasing love for one another" because these qualities are never fully "achieved." They are always changing with the maturity of our own hearts.
Our "success" is not found in numbers or quotas, but rather, in a word aptly spoken, a prayer offered, or a light-hearted conversation. In the case of our Core retreat our success was found through paintball games, climbing walls, and s'mores roasted over a fire.
Our goal is growing faith and increasing love. I am thankful for our church family, and I am thankful that my "success" is not achieved in simply a day, or in a single event, but in a lifetime.
Submitted by:
Steele Croswhite
The Rock
Salt Lake City, Utah
One-Year Reading Plan:
Micah 5:1-7:20
Revelation 7:1-17
Psalms 135:1-21
Proverbs 30:5-6
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SCRIPTURE REFERENCB-ES: Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible B) The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy, Bible, New International Version, copyright B) 1973, 1978, 1984 by InternaB-tional Bible Society; (NKJV) are from New King James Version B) 1982 by Thomas Nelson; (NLT) are from the New Living Translation, B) 1996, Tyndale House Publishers; (ESV) are from English Standard VersionB., B) 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers; (TM) are from The Message B) 1993 by NavPress Publishers.