We ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
– 2 Thessalonians 1:3
It’s that last phrase that I want us to meditate on and pray according to.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 Teaches Us to Pray for Other’s Growth in Faith and Love
Paul starts just like he did in 1 Thessalonians by talking about thanksgiving for the Church of the Thessalonians. He actually says, “We ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers. This is right for us to thank God for you.” He’s just overflowing with thanksgiving for these people, and he tells us why. Because your faith is growing abundantly. Now that’s a good phrase. Let’s not actually just do the last phrase. Let’s do both of these. Your faith is growing abundantly, so that’s why I’m giving thanks, because I’m seeing abundant growth in your faith and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing, so your faith is abundantly growing and your love for each other is increasing.
Those are two really good things. Pray for certainly in our own lives, but the whole picture here is Paul’s talking about others. Pray for this in others’ lives. Just to think about the people who you pray for, who God has called you to pray for, the people in your sphere of influence, pray for their faith to grow abundantly and for their love for others to increase, and specifically for each other to increase. What a great thing for me to pray for my kids, that their faith would grow abundantly and that their love for one another would increase.
Yeah, that’s a really good thing to pray for. What a great thing to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the church, to pray their faith would grow abundantly, their love for each other increase. Just think about those two things today. I’d encourage you to think all day, or as you go into the next day, those two things, to pray specifically for them over others’ lives, and in the process, to yes, say, “God, I want these things in my life.”
2 Thessalonians 1:3 Encourages Us to Pray for Our Own Spiritual Growth
What would it look like to grow abundantly in your faith this week and to increase in your love for other people around you? God, we pray for this. We thank you so much for your Word, how it just spells out not only how to live, but what we want and what we want to ask you for, what we need from you. God, this is not natural to us. God, our faith, others’ faith, grows stagnant and stale.
Naturally, we need your Holy Spirit to bring about abundant growth in faith. God, we pray for that over others’ lives around us, over the people who we pray for most often in our lives. Lord, we pray for abundant growth in their faith. God, we’re asking you for that. Cause faith to abound in growth in the people around us. God, we pray for increasing love. We pray that their love for others would grow.
God, we do. We pray this over our families. We pray this over our church families, for abounding faith to grow in our churches and for increasing love for one another in our churches. God, may it be so. Lord, we ask for these things in our own lives. God, I pray for my own life. We pray for each of our lives. Help our faith to grow abundantly this week. We pray that you would help our love for others in the church and for our love for others outside the church to increase this week.
Prayer for the Zargar People
God, as we pray for unreached people, I think about these prayer requests for them. Lord, today, for the Zargar people of India, the Punjabi speaking seek people group with no known followers of Jesus. God, for those Zargar people of India, we pray, for abundant growth of faith in Jesus among the Zargar people.
God, please may it be so. Bring it about. We’re asking for that. We’re interceding for them right now. God, bring about abundant faith in the Zargar people, faith in you, growing faith in you. Cause the gospel to spread to them that they might believe in you, Jesus, and they might grow abundantly in faith in you. We pray for that among them, and we pray for supernatural love, totally transform their lives in you.
Oh God, we love praying your Word. We ask specifically, according to 2 Thessalonians 1:3, for abundant growth and faith and increasing love for one another. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
