Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.[1]
When God tells us to “pursue
love,” he is telling us to pursue the love that is already poured out into
our hearts through the person and presence of the Holy Spirit.
and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.[2]
When God tells us to “earnestly
desire spiritual gifts,” he is telling us to “earnestly desire” what God has already distributed throughout the
church through the person and presence of the Holy Spirit.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and
there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of
activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each
is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.[3]
When God tells us to “pursue
love,” it is because love is the spiritual fruit that has the greatest
effect on building up the church.
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”[4]
When God tells us to “earnestly
desire… especially that you may prophesy,” it is because prophecy is the
spiritual gift that has the greatest effect on building up the church.[5]
The focus of the exhortation is to “pursue… and earnestly desire,” because everything we do is in
response to everything God is doing.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.[6]
Whenever we read anything in Scripture that is an
exhortation, command, or instruction to the church, we are to treat it like
that is what God is working in us, “both
to will and to work for his good pleasure.” It is never a law that we must
obey in order to win God’s favor, but a work God is already doing within us
because his favor is upon us in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Since God is graciously working in people like us so that we
can will the things he wills, and work the things he works, our response to
this grace is to “work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling.”
Fear does not mean being afraid of God, but being so aware
of the supremacy of God’s good pleasure over our own that we cannot think to be
anywhere different than where he is, or doing anything different than what he
is doing.
Trembling does not mean that we are terrified of God, but
that we are invited to live in such constant anticipation of God’s “good and acceptable and perfect” will,[7]
that we tremble with the seriousness of striving to be right where he is, and
doing exactly what he is doing, and we tremble with the expectation of what good
things joining God in his will and his work will do in us.
Jesus’ example to his disciples is that, “the Son can do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the
Son does likewise.”[8] Jesus
did nothing independent of the Father, and did everything in fellowship with
the Father, leaving his church an example to follow.
Jesus’ instruction to his disciples is that, “I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart
from me you can do nothing.”[9]
Just as Jesus “can do nothing” apart
from the Father, Jesus’ brothers “can do
nothing” apart from Jesus.
Therefore, when the church is instructed to, “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the
spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy,”[10]
we respond to this as a work of our Father that must be joined. God has poured
his love into our hearts, and into the church, and this is in the person and presence
of the Holy Spirit, so pursue love.
The Holy Spirit is actively empowering all believers in the
use of their spiritual gifts, and he is distributing those spiritual gifts “to each one individually as he wills.”[11]
Therefore, we must earnestly desire the spiritual gifts God is working into his
church through the person and presence of the Holy Spirit.
Over the past couple of weeks of meditating on Scriptures
about the Holy Spirit’s work in Jesus’ church, I have become convinced that any
resistance I feel to pursuing love and earnestly desiring spiritual gifts is because
my sark/flesh does not want to yield to anyone other than itself.
Thankfully, God has given me a “new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and
holiness,”[12]
and that new self is getting really excited about becoming more and more like Jesus
in both spiritual fruit, and spiritual gifts.
After all, if “we all,
with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same image from one degree of glory to another,” and “this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit,”[13]
why wouldn’t we want to be a church that keeps growing up to be just as loving
and gifted after the “same image” as
our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ?
© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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