How missional love prepares us for the return of Christ
By Paul Eaton
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”
Paul’s prayer begins with a request:
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow...”
This is not a love we conjure up ourselves. It’s love produced by the Lord himself, cultivated through our dependence on God, and experienced in community:
For each other: Sacrificial servant love shared among believers. The Lord himself is making us one so that we would be for one another in an age of division, confusion and individualism.
For everyone else: Paul widens the circle. The Christian life is not insular. It is missional. Our holiness is incomplete if it doesn't extend love to the outsider, the skeptic, the lonely, the searching.
The church is not only called to love the family of faith but to be a witness to the watching world and that witness is most clearly seen in how we love.
BLAMELESS AND HOLY WHEN HE COMES
Paul’s second request is just as profound:
“May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God…”
This isn’t about performance or perfection. It’s about formation, our hearts being strengthened, shaped, and aligned with Christ.
When Jesus returns, Paul says, we will stand before Him. And what will he be looking for? Not merely religious activity or theological correctness, but lives marked by holy love. We prepare to meet Jesus not just by believing in him, but by becoming like him.
A STORY OF ETERNAL READINESS: CORRIE TEN BOOM
To see this in action, consider the life of Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who helped hide Jews during the Holocaust. Her family’s deep love for the oppressed wasn’t just moral courage, it was the offering of hearts shaped by Jesus.
Corrie and her family were eventually arrested. Her father died in prison, and Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In those brutal conditions, they continued to love. They shared Scripture secretly, praying for fellow prisoners, and even forgiving their captors.
After the war, Corrie traveled the world preaching forgiveness and hope. Her life was marked by two things: a deep love for all people, even her enemies, and a constant readiness to meet Jesus. She once said:
“When Jesus returns, I want Him to find me busy loving people.”
A CALL TO US TODAY
We are still a people living between the now and the not yet. Jesus hascome, and Jesus will come again. And as we wait, Paul’s prayer calls us into more. To let our love grow beyond the walls of the Church and to let every act of love prepare us for the day we see Him face to face.
