If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophechies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Pursue love..."
Did you catch that?! PURSUE LOVE. As Christians, we get to pursue love! How exciting is that?! We are supposed to pursue love. What a wonderful, full, rich, and rewarding job! John MacArthur's study bible says, "Pursue love. A command for every believer. Because lovelessness was a root spiritual problem in the Corinthian church, the Godly love just described should have been sought after by them with particular determination and diligence. " So beginning in my own home, I get to seek out how to love God, my husband, and children and then turn toward my church family, extended family, friends, neighbors, strangers, those lost without Christ, enemies... May the Lord grant continual growth in turning away from selfishness, anger, my own agenda, personal comfort...all the things standing in the way of my pursuing love.
In the book, Charity and It's Fruits by Jonathan Edwards he wrote, "If you would be in the way to the world of love, see that you live a life of love—of love to God, and love to men. All of us
hope to have part in the world of love hereafter, and therefore we should cherish the spirit of love, and live a life of holy love
here on earth. This is the way to be like the inhabitants of heaven, who are now confirmed in love forever. Only in this way
can you be like them in excellence and loveliness, and like them, too, in happiness, and rest, and joy. By living in love in this
world you may be like them, too, in sweet and holy peace, and thus have, on earth, the foretastes of heavenly pleasures and
delights.
Thus, also, you may have a sense of the glory of heavenly things, as of God, and Christ, and holiness; and your heart be
disposed and opened by holy love to God, and by the spirit of peace and love to men, to a sense of the excellence and sweet-
ness of all that is to be found in heaven. Thus shall the windows of heaven be as it were opened, so that its glorious light
shall shine in upon your soul. Thus you may have the evidence of your fitness for that blessed world, and that you are actu-
ally on the way to its possession.
And being thus made ready, through grace, for the inheritance of the saints in light, when a few more days shall have
passed away, you shall be with them in their blessedness forever. Happy, thrice happy those, who shall thus be found faithful
to the end, and then shall be welcomed to the joy of their Lord! There,
“they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither
shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall
feed them, and shall lead them unto living
fountains of waters, and God shall
wipe away all tears from their
eyes”—Revelation 7:16-17."
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