A more Excellent Way
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But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. (1 Cor 12;31).
Paul was here writing to the church at Corinth which had it all, gifts , ministries, signs and wonders and church growth, it had Apostles, prophets, Pastors, teachers, Evangelists, the latest and the greatest, workers of miracles, healers of he sick, tongue talkers and pew walkers, mysteries were explained sermons were preached yet one thing they lacked, yes one thing that was the main thing that was LOVER. The greatest of Gifts cannot outdo the greatness of LOVE. Two ways are expressed here in this passage The excellent way and the more excellent way. The excellent way is the supernatural way, The more excellent way is the greater Way, it is the way of love.
The words ‘more excellent way’ come from the Greek, ‘Huperbole’ implies super-eminence and comes form the word ‘Huperballo’ which means to throw beyond, rendered ‘exceeding’ or’ excess’ Romans 7;13 or OUT OF MEASURE
( 2 Cor1;8) or far more more exceeding (2 Cor 4;17) this is the stature of the more excellent way. If you want to out do, go beyond and enter the unlimitlessness of the things of God we have to go beyond excellence and into LOVE. for love is the more excellent way.
It’s not enough to love preaching its not enough to heal the sick and cat out demons, these things we ought to be doing. these things ought to follow the word, but the chief overruling factor of it all is a LOVE of God, for God, born of God, coming from God agape unconditional love. If a man truly loves God he will truly love truth, If a man truly loves truth then he will value revelation more than manifestation he will change direction because of truth, he will change denomination because of truth he will change his god because of truth. why truth is a person and only an encounter with the person of Jesus can put true agape love into a man.
without a love for truth man cannot experience or work the supernatural. I’ve seen men scoff at the truth they don’t want to change their roman dogmatic views they are too addicted to democracy and follow the celebrities, the way of Rome rather than the way to Jerusalem they preach another Jesus, not the one as the Lord God but another way and another god. without the love for truth no man can see the supernatural gifts in his life.
Its time to go beyond playing church, its time to go beyond stylish preaching its time to experience real love. Here is what Paul says. (>1 Cor 13;1-13)
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.