Let me share with you why I chose to name my blog "Pursuing 13". I am pursuing a life that is characterized by one thing. Something that everyone in the world is searching for whether they know it or not. Many people are looking for it in the people they are around, their boyfriend or girlfriend, their spouse, their friends, their family. But they come up short every time so they look to what else the world has to offer hoping that maybe it will fulfill them. Some work harder and harder every day thinking that if they can just reach the "American dream" with a 401k and a fancy car that they will be happy. People go to things like food and alcohol thinking that maybe they can find happiness in that, yet they just become addicted and even more unhappy. The thing is the world cannot give them what they are looking for because what they are longing for is not of the world.
What people are looking for is love, true love. A love that is so full of grace and mercy that it chose to die for us. A love that is so powerful that it overcame sin and death! A love that wants to know us and have a relationship with us. This love cannot be given by any people or things in our lives. It is a love that only God can give us. His love is so perfect and so full and so rich that it chooses to accept us in our sin. God is this love, and He gives Himself to any and all who ask Him! This love is what I want my life to be defined by!
For many many years the passage 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 has been one of my very favorites, it is a chapter in the Bible that is extremely well known even if people don't even realize where it is from.
Most people think of 1 Corinthians 13 as the "love" chapter of the Bible, but I think of it as the "life" chapter. It is pasted on countless walls, and used in most weddings (my friend just got married the other day and they mentioned this verse) . You see verses 4-7 everywhere and some people don't even realize it is from the Bible. But to me this verse is so much more. It is what drives me to be who I am. It is the reason I accepted Gods call to be a missionary. This chapter explains a little bit of who God is; He is patient and kind, He is gentle and not easily angered, He is not arrogant or rude or resentful, but He rejoices is truth! God bears, believes, hopes and endures all things! His love NEVER fails, it NEVER ends because His love is eternal! All other things in this life will pass away but Gods love will go on forever. As a Christian I am called to love like God loves. I am imperfect and do not love like this all the time but I do strive for this each day and honestly it isn't me when I do love like this; it is God loving through me and I am just His vessel.
I know that the Message version is frowned on a lot...but I love the way it says 1 Corinthians 13 1-3
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If
I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making
everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain,
“Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If
I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be
burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter
what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love."
If I do not love I am nothing. That means that even if I am doing all these things in the church and saying they are for God the effect is no good if I am not giving love. I have done this so many times in my life and it is just exhausting. But when I finally listen to what God is telling me and I do them in love it is like this new energy is given to me. Because when I am doing them without love I am doing it all on my own, but when I finally choose to do it out of love it is no longer me. When I choose love it cannot be me, it is God and it is His love. I don't know why I ever try to do things on my own anyway, it is just silly. That is why I love the first three verses of this chapter! They remind me that love is what I am here to do and give. It gives me purpose to do life and to do it out of a place of genuine care for the world. My life is defined by the love that was poured out on me by God, so why wouldn't I share that in everything I do?! I enjoy so much to do things in God's love because that means I get to say to people that He is the reason and give Him all the credit! I would not be where I am without this great love of His. I wouldn't be who I am without His all consuming love.
So you ask me, "Why not just say 'Pursuing Love'?" Honestly it is because when most people see the word love they automatically think that I am looking for a man (and because I want to be hipster hahaha)...which I guess you could say I am ;) just not the kind of man most people would think of. I am in pursuit of a man who will give His love through me, the only man greater than all the troubles of this world, Jesus Christ. This is the passion God has put in my heart, to love people with His love. I want to live my whole life pursuing new ways to do this, that is why I will be spending my summer in Nicaragua. God has given me this extremely exciting (and scary) opportunity to love the people of Nicaragua and I am following Him there! He is already making the way and I just have to obey and say "yes" to what He is asking of me. While I am preparing and going I will be writing about how God is paving the way for me and how He is working while I am there.
What are you doing to pursue the love of Christ in your life?
"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."
1 Corithians 13:1-3
Praying that love is greater in your life each day!
