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When I think of the way of love, immediately First Corinthians chapter 13 springs to mind. According to my NIV Bible study notes, the Greek word for the love Paul speaks of in this chapter indicates a “selfless concern for the welfare of others that is not called forth by any quality of loveableness in the person loved, but is the product of a will to love in obedience to God’s command to love. It is like Christ’s love manifested on the cross (see John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:16).”

In fact, after Paul describes this Jesus kind of love in chapter 13, he encourages the Corinthians to eagerly pursue and seek to acquire this love, making it their aim, their great quest (1 Corinthians 14:1 AMP). The Apostle knew that living love as Jesus did (and commands us likewise to do) is doomed to failure without a God-encounter to radically reverse the religious mindset that blinds us from seeing the real God. We see this man’s radical transformation from Saul to Paul when we compare Act 9 to Philippians 3.

In Acts 9, Saul’s Damascus road encounter with Jesus revealed to him that he wasn’t defending God’s ways but defying God’s ways; that what he thought was love for God was, in fact, love for his own religious rituals and roots. During his three days of physical blindness, he came to see that all of his religious qualifications, heritage and merits were as rubbish, worthless and useless. Only through God’s love expressed through Jesus Christ was it possible to know the real God.

In Philippians 3, Paul shares this insight. He speaks of his passion to gain Christ and be found in Him (vs. 8-9); his desire to know Christ (vs. 10); his primary focus to apprehend (seize, take eagerly, possess, attain) that for which Christ Jesus has apprehended him.

This man, who began his journey to Damascus as Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of the Church ended his journey as Paul, a chosen instrument of God to bear His name before the Gentiles and the people of Israel. Without a God-encounter of like spiritual kind that opens our eyes to a revelation of God, we, individually and collectively, are destined to remain religious Sauls, opposing God, instead of chosen Pauls, accomplishing our purpose in Christ for the Kingdom.

The Apostle Paul had experiential revelation of the real God essential to all believers who want God to be real in their lives. He provided the secret as he instructed the Corinthians, “eagerly pursue and seek to acquire this love, make it your aim, your great quest” (1 Corinthians 14:1 AMP). He set them on the road to their God-encounter by this directive. Here’s why.

According to I John 4:8, whoever does not love does not know God for God is love. The description of love in I Corinthians chapter 13 is a description of the very nature of God. When we look into the mirror of I Corinthians 13, we see with our own eyes the wonder of God’s essence reflected there.

God is this Love the Apostle Paul admonishes us to eagerly pursue and seek to acquire. The quest for love’s acquisition brings the pursuer face to face with God. Every face-to-face encounter with God brings transformation. The more a pursuer seeks to live this love, the more real God becomes; the more God makes Himself known to the pursuer.

Paul wanted all believers to live in Christ and Christ to live in them. In his prayer for the Ephesians, he prays: “May Christ through our faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely in love” (Eph. 3:17 AMP). Paul knew that being rooted deep and founded securely in love was to be deeply rooted and securely founded in God.

Paul desired all believers to experientially live in this Jesus kind of love reflected in I Corinthians 13 so they could come to know through personal experience the reality of a real God. Paul continues his prayer, “[That you may really come] to know [practically through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all of your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (Eph. 3:19 AMP)” If we, individually and collectively as the Church, want God to be real to us we must pursue love, making love our aim and great quest.

We know we are laying hold of this love when our selfish love gives way to the selfless nature of love and love’s essence is reflected in our relationships with one another. I John 11-12, 16b, 17a (NIV): Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…. If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us… God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us….”

May the Living God through His grace give us the power and strength to apprehend and grasp the breadth, length, height and depth of this great love. May the pursuit of love be our great aim and life-long quest so that we will become a body wholly filled and flooded with the richest measure of Love Himself!

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IN PURSUIT OF THIS GREAT LOVE