Joy of the Gospel

How do we love God's way? The Bible tells us to "follow after charity" (1 Corinthians 14:1). But what does it mean to follow after charity? And what is charity? Here, the phrase "follow after" means earnestly pursue. It also means to seek after eagerly. Thus, "following" in this passage is a more active action than just going behind something. When we think of the word "follow" today, we may think of the action of pressing an internet button. This virtual action lets us have access to another person's actions. That is, when we follow someone on the internet, we can then observe how that person thinks, what they do, how they feel about topics, and much more. However, this "following" is mostly virtual and requires no action on our part, other then navigating to a person's page and scrolling.

Nevertheless, God intends us to follow love differently (in a new way). This means we are not to take an inactive role in love—talking about it, reading about it, or just "feeling" it. No, we are to seek it with intense energy and action. And we should want it earnestly. To want something earnestly means that we are serious about acquiring something. We want to "fight" for it. This fight is not a physical fight. But fighting for love means we want to work hard for love. We want to overcome barriers to acquiring love.

Now, the love that God wants us to pursue is not the love most are accustomed to today. When people think about the word love or charity, they might think of romantic or a generous love. However, the kind of love the Bible is talking about here is different. I will talk about this kind of love in the next post.