THE HIGHER PURSUIT;

“Let love be your highest goal!”-{1 Cor 14:1 NLT}

Have you ever heard someone say that their ambition is to above all else pursue love. That they may love people more and more consistently, purposely? Some have heard it said, “pursue your dreams,” and often the meaning is, all for self, ends with self, as the center of the whole pursuit! No thought of pursuing what He wants and is worthy of, no thought of how will this help me serve others for His sake. Some pursuits are good, lawful  but if not done out of a heart of Love for Him and His glory, then they are of no eternal value!

  • “Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. “-{John 14:21}
  • “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”-{1 Cor 10:31}
  • “Let all that you do be done in love“-{1 Cor 16;14}

We have all kinds of ambitions, aspirations, and parents with children in school or college when they speak of them or if they themselves are asked what do you want to be or what are you studying, what are your hopes ? None respond “that I may pursue love so I may love God and others better!” For whether it is a school, athletics, a job, family, if a follower of The Lord Jesus Christ surely whatever the environment then we must pursue and prioritize and PRACTICE what He says to and HE SAYS “PURSUE LOVE” or as the NLT says”Let love be your highest goal!”

“Follow that with your utmost diligence, as the persecutors follow you; for it is the same word that is ordinarily used to signify the violent prosecution of persecutors, though it be applied also to things which we ought eagerly to follow, Romans 9:31 14:19.-{Matthew Poole}

“Follow after charity. Pursue love, that is, earnestly desire it; strive to possess it; make it the object of your anxious and constant solicitude to obtain it, and to be influenced by it always. Cultivate it in your own hearts, as the richest and best endowment of the Holy Spirit, and endeavour to diffuse its happy influence on all around you. “-{ Barnes}

” Earnestly Pursue Love….” Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 speaks of the Preeminence of love and since it is so he now says to “Pursue” it, since it is “the greatest”-{1 Corinthians 13:13}.

Be diligent, purposefully, single-minded in your chasing, pursuing wholeheartedly love, understanding it, allowing it to influence your thinking, your decision making, relationships. Pursuing it to practice it, dispensing it to those around you. Loving people as God defines it in His Word! Manifesting you belong to the Lord Jesus , by your love!-{John 13;35}

While many divisions were taking place among the Corinthian church the one ingredient at the root of all the trouble was the absence of LOVE! Self- love, yes- which is selfishness, but not the Love of Christ!

Where love is expressed, genuine humility is present and others are edified, built up. “…love edifies.”-{1 Cor 8:1}.

Corinth’s church lacked love and so the lack of discernment as they pursued spiritual gifts, failing to realize that God through The Holy Spirit gives Spiritual gifts as pleases Him for the building up of His people and Glorifying God-“As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. “-{ 1 Peter 4:10-11}

Above all the gifts the preeminent is LOVE! For each gift is to be ministered in love!

While we give ourselves to lots of PURSUITS, whether it be education, seeking  to be masters in that subject, money, fame, prestige, the desire to be “number one,” a job, learning a trade to become the best, sports, etc, which all take time, concentration, discipline, we must above all pursue to be those who choose to PRACTICE love and do love others…it’s more than a “Bible study” or a portrait on a wall with 1 Cor 13;4-8 inscribed in nice writing. It is a life to be lived and pursued in all relationships, “…And above all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”-{Col 3;14}. Like a fresh, clean new garment, “put on love,” in your thinking and doing! “Above all else…” put on love by knowing what it is as He declares and choosing to think on it having your mind renewed and then choosing in your choices to live empowered by the Holy Spirit to practically love others. Treating them with love, consistently.-{Read Phil 2;13 NLT}.

It is a life laid down denying self in order to prefer others. Paul wrote to the “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit,Philippians  but with  humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;  do not merely look out for your own personal  interests, but also for the interests of others . Have this attitude yourselves  which was also   

  in Christ in   Jesus”- .  {Phil 2:3-5},

Love is a verb. Sacrificial, not self serving…Not  seeking or demanding anything in return, only their highest good  and the motivation is ultimately ” …for Jesus sake.”- {Read 2 Cor 4:5}. It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to be able love like this on our own strength, “BUT GOD…” has provided us with new life, new power,{2 Peter 1:3}. The Holy Spirit to empower us to do so. We have the command to love, the capacity to love, now we must choose to love!

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 reads;

“ If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of  prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

“… and I show you a still MORE EXCELLENT way…”-{1 Cor 12:31}…and this was the way of love in chapter 13. and then Paul goes on to say…in 14 :1 –“Pursue love”- Let it be your great aim, your chief aim, 

Pursue love, practicing it, placing it above all else that you love Him and love others as the pursuit in every relationship…

READ – 1 COR 13:4-8 every day for a month. You will become more and more familiar with the words, verses and before you know it you will be able to recall them as if there are thirty days in a month, that will mean you have read it thirty times. The more you read the more you can retain and the Holy Spirit can use in your life to remind you to make loving choices in your relationships and encounters with people, and demonstrate you are His!

MEMORIZE – 1 Cor 13;4-8. Verse by verse, maybe write it out and place on a  mirror in your bathroom and daily when you brush your teeth read it . Throughout your day, when you have free moments THINK on the verse, the words, and pray asking Him  to help you. Take a verse or two a week to memorize and meditate upon.

PRACTICE – Be a Doer of the Word, love people… Deny yourself and then Prefer Others, motivated “…For Jesus Sake.”

Let love be your highest goal!”-{1 Cor 14:1 NLT}