Follow Love Like Your Life Depends on It.

1 Corinthians 14 begins with this opening salvo, a heartbeat carried forward from Paul’s declaration in 13:13 that “the greatest” of all the gifts of the Spirit, the greatest of all the fruit He bears within us, “is love.”  The initial command of v. 1 is, “follow the Way of Love,” i.e., ‘keep striving for love, keep seeking after love, keep aspiring to love’ …in the Spirit.  “Follow Love, chase it down, track it to the ends of the Earth” and “passionately desire intimacy with the Holy Spirit, desire your gifting and God’s glory!” {RRExp}.  We’re commanded {each and every one of us} to pursue love, to strive for it in relationships, to seek after it in every encounter with another, to focus on the Father’s love and embrace it as a priority in our lives.  The ultimate aim of Jesus’ Apprentices is to become loving Sons and Daughters, people of strength and wisdom and courage and compassion, fierce and faithful and generous.

And what does love do?  Love sacrifices; love stays; love serves.  It doesn’t demand recognition; it doesn’t assert its rights over the rights of others; it doesn’t abuse its position of power.  It gives and gives and gives in the Cause for which Christ died: “to seek and to save that which was lost” {Lk. 19:10b}, to redeem the ransomed soul, to snatch from the ashes the last ember of a dying faith.  It’s been said, “The world is full of beauty when the heart is full of love.”  Which means we’re going to have to humble ourselves in the presence of the Lord and ask Him for more of His love within us, a fresh outpouring of His love.  And when we do, the love of Jesus will be like “rivers of living water flowing from within us” {Jn. 7:38}.  Love will reach the hearts of the lost and the lonely; it will work!  It’s the only thing that can.

When you boil 1 Corinthians 13 down to its bare essentials, strip everything away, lose the lofty language and idealistic emotions, what does Abba tell us?  “Love never fails” {1 Cor. 13:8a}.  You may fail the love of God but the love of God will never fail you!  We don’t earn His love in our lives anymore than we earn His grace in our redemption.  The Lord of all Life, the King of all Creation, loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.  Jesus’ love for me is absolute and unconditional: and nothing I will ever do or not do will ever change this.  What we need, above all else in a faithless Age, is the ‘courage to accept His unconditional acceptance,’ and the joy and wisdom to live from this place!

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously