Being A Zealous Builder in the Church

The Call to Act Like Men in the Church

Let's begin with a verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, and verse 13, the last part. 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 13, the whole verse says, Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

There is a need for us to act like men. There's a particular way God wants men to act. We've been thinking about the calling of a brother as first of all a husband and also as a father, and we want to think about a responsibility as one who shares in God's kingdom, participates in building the church.

Effeminacy, Responsibility, and the Fall of Adam

So in 1 Corinthians in chapter 6, it speaks about a particular sin which many people don't think of as sin. It's in connection with what I said just now, act like men. Verse 9, 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9, don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Don't be deceived. Now look at the list of people here, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers. There's quite a list of, every one of them we can understand except one, effeminate, a man behaving like a woman, and that's categorized in the same category as idolaters, fornicators, adulterers, thieves, and drunkards, and revilers.

Do you believe that? I don't think think of that seriously. We don't even think of that as God's created us to be men. I've seen many husbands who are effeminate husbands. The wife is the boss in the house.

Now God did create Eve to be a helper to Adam, but Adam was the first effeminate man. When you see Genesis chapter 3 and you see Eve talking to the serpent, the devil, I used to always think perhaps Adam was wandering around somewhere else till I saw in Genesis 3 and verse 6, the last part, she gave the fruit to her husband who was with her.

He was standing there all along while this conversation was going on between the devil and his wife. He never said a word. He just allowed his wife to have a conversation with the devil, and imagine if he had just intervened there and said, hey Eve, forget it, don't talk to that serpent, let's go, because after all God had appointed him to be the head, and there we see the first example of an effeminate man who brought such a ruin into his family, and I believe it's because he was such an effeminate man that his first son grew up to be a murderer.

He probably was an effeminate father as well, that he never taught his son, I mean you don't get a son growing up to be a murderer to kill his younger brother, unless the father is a pretty useless father.

So I see right at the beginning of sin in the world, the entrance of sin in this human race, it begins not only with the unbelieving disobedient wife, but with an effeminate man who was an effeminate husband and a effeminate father who did not act like a man like we read in the beginning, and I think that's why if effeminate people are put in the same category as murderers and adulterers, you know, I believe scripture, I believe there's a reason why God has put that being effeminate right in the middle of some of those worst criminals of all that we saw in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I believe this is why many homes have suffered, because the man is not the head of the house, many children have suffered because man is not a good father, and many churches have suffered because men don't take the lead to involve themselves, and I don't mean everybody must be a leader, being manly does not mean being a leader, it just means taking responsibility, even if it's a responsibility to clean the restrooms, to take responsibility, because if you don't have a gift of teaching, you can't teach, if you don't have a gift of preaching the word, you can't do it, but you can still be a man.

God gives very few people the gift of ministry of the word, so that's not the mark of a man, because I find 95 of men in the church who may have no gift of preaching at all, they still got to be men, so it's very important for us to understand on the place that God has appointed for men in His church especially, and though there is a place for women and even children to serve the Lord in the church, yet when Jesus prayed you know, let me just show you this first, in Luke chapter 8, who were the people going around with Jesus when He was preaching?

Luke chapter 8, as He went around from city to city, village to village preaching, the 12 disciples were with Him, and it says also some women, verse 2, Luke 8 verse 2, women who had been healed of evil spirits like Mary Magdalene from whom seven demons would come out, Joanna the wife of Cusa Herod Stewart, Herod Stewart means a palace manager, so the palace manager, he must have been a very influential rich man, his wife was following Jesus, and Susanna, and many others, these women were contributing to the support of Jesus and the disciples, and yet we read in Luke chapter 6 and verse 12, Jesus went into the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer, and whenever He spent a whole night in prayer, it was a particular reason, you see the reason in the next verse, when the day came He called His disciples, so I believe He prayed, He wasn't praying all night, every night, definitely not, most of the night He slept, even in a boat He slept, but when there was some very, very important decision which was going to affect the future of the church for the next two millennium, 2000 years, He prayed all night to be able to select the right people, and though there were men and women following with Him, the Father gave Him the names of only 12 men, that's why I showed you earlier that there were many women also in that group following Jesus, but the Father never gave in the name of any woman who was to be an apostle, or a leader, and that shows that these are the 12 who finally became the leaders in the early church, and so the leadership in the church, as we see consistently in the New Testament, was always with men.

Deborah and Barak: Fearful Leadership Under the Old Covenant

Now in the Old Testament, it was not so under the old covenant. We read at the time when Deborah was a prophetess, says she would, in the book of Judges, book of Judges in chapter 4 and verse 4, Deborah a prophetess.

Now it's interesting, we read here in chapter 4 and verse 2, the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, and the sons of Israel cried to the Lord because they were being oppressed, verse 3, oppressed severely for 20 years.

Lord, give us deliverance from this strong king, and God gave them a woman. Deborah, that's the answer to the Israelites praying for 20 years. That is not how God answered Jesus when He prayed all night.

Deborah, she used to sit, she's the wife of Lappidoth, verse 5, she sat under the palm tree, and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment, all the men and women, and she was the one who called Barak and said the Lord has called you to fight against the enemy.

Now what do you think her husband was doing? Her husband was probably cooking at home and looking after the children, but Deborah was the judge. Why was that? Is it because God changed his mind from the time of Adam?

No, I don't think so. The bravest man in Israel at that time was this man called Barak. He was a leader of the army. So Deborah tells Barak, the Lord has commanded, go and I will draw, look at the promise she gave Barak, I will bring Sisera out, and I will, verse 7, give him into your hand.

What a promise! You can go out with great boldness. The victory is already assured, and he says, sister, if you don't come with me, I won't go. That's the bravest man in Israel. Sister, you got to come with me.

I can't go alone. I mean God's promise is not enough. So this is how God is disappointed with many men. They don't take the leadership in their home, they don't help with the leadership in the church, and they're not effective witnesses, bold witnesses for Christ, effeminate, brave, fearful.

Bold Witness in the Workplace

They're afraid to stand up for Christ in their place of work, to be known as a wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ. Not that we have to preach in our place of work. I've worked in the ship and in the naval bases.

We're not allowed to preach. I couldn't go around converting the sailors, but I decided that, okay, I'm not going to, the things I'm not supposed to do in the space of work, but nobody's going to stop me from putting a Bible on my table, and nobody's going to stop me from having a Bible calendar with a verse on it.

So then, that's my own table, or in India, people hang a calendar on the wall. I'd hang a calendar on my wall with a verse on it, a verse on the Bible. I couldn't preach, but there were ways of making known that I was a Christian, and I remember a Hindu man came up to me and got converted, and I say, if I just kept quiet, he said, I'm not allowed to preach here, and avoided, and always had an excuse, I'm not allowed to preach this, I'm keeping quiet.

That guy would not have been dead. So, if I'm always finding an excuse why I cannot, or the rules in this office are like this, okay, follow the rules by all means, don't go against the rules, but nobody can stop you from making it known that you're a Christian.

You don't laugh at the dirty jokes. You are considerate and helpful, different from the others who are selfish, and you know, I often think of Joseph. You know how Joseph got to meet Pharaoh? Very clear.

Of course, it was God's plan, but there's something that triggered it, something on Joseph's character. Though he was in prison, he didn't sit there moping and feeling sorry for himself, that he's so far away, and his God is almost forsaken, and his parents are so far away, and this evil woman has accused me, and I'm lying here in this prison.

He was not. He was a man, and he saw this Pharaoh's cupbearer, Baker, discouraged, and he went up to them, and say, hey, why are you looking discouraged? I've often thought about that. Don't make me like that, right?

Somebody in church is looking like that, or somebody in my office is looking like that. What's the harm in going up to him and say, hey, can I help you in some way? And maybe after he has a problem, can I say, can I pray for you?

I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord. Well, that's what Joseph did, and because of that, because he could explain that dream to them, that opened the way for him to meet with Pharaoh. So, to act like a man and be strong, not any fear.

Honoring God Without Fear

It's basically, you know, fear is, I mean, men are afraid too, but fear is basically associated with women, or timid, and that must not be there in us. I shouldn't be afraid that if I stand up for the truth, and I'm righteous in my office, I may lose my job.

Well, if I lose my job because I'm standing up for the truth and righteousness, I'm ready to lose it, and God will give me something better. Definitely. He'll never let me suffer for honoring Him. I've always lived by that verse in 1 Samuel 2 verse 30, those who honor me I will honor.

It's a wonderful promise, and I can assure you I've never yet met a person who wholeheartedly honored God, whom God did not honor, and if you honor God, and God does not honor you, you'll be the first person in the history of the human race whom God did not honor.

He always honors those who honor Him. I've never been afraid to do that myself, and I've never been afraid to teach that to others, because we have a whole lot of men in many churches so timid, and fearful, and afraid.

Think of all these, even if you read of some of the martyrs in the first three centuries of Christianity. There were women who were bold. There's a story of this young mother, Perpetua, in the second century or something, who became a Christian, and her father, and she had a baby, and because the Roman soldiers came to take her away, and her father pleaded with her to give up the faith.

She said no. She finally was thrown into the lions, stood true to the... There were bold women like that, and there were men who were like sissies, and afraid to proclaim that they belonged to Christ.

So it's good for us to read all this, to be challenged by it. There's a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs, a very good book. We had a copy of it in our home. I read through it, and I'll read the very thick book, the original one.

Now there's a smaller version of it, but then there are some stories in that that we could tell our children, which enable us to be bold, and so we can act like men in different situations, and not be fearful and afraid.

Jesus Christ: Gentleness, Humility, and Firmness

And yet it is not the arrogant type of man. That's not the type of man whom God is, you know. Sometimes we think firmness means arrogance. No. The one who really lived like a man on this earth was Jesus Christ.

He could confront the Pharisees, could take a whip, and chase a whole lot of people who are making money in the name of Christ, fearlessly. I mean, I find today some preachers even afraid to preach against these preachers who are making money.

People don't use a whip on them. They're afraid to preach against them. They say, oh, we must be nice and gracious. Well, Jesus wasn't gracious to those guys making money in the name of God in the temple.

These are examples of what I'm saying, timidity and fear. But yet, he was the humblest man that walked on the earth, and he told us to learn two things from him. In Matthew 11 verse 29, the one who was a man's man, most manly man that ever walked on the earth, says in Matthew 11 verse 29, learn from me for I am gentle and humble.

So, manliness is gentleness and humility. It's not timidity, but it is gentleness and humility. Gentleness is not a female characteristic. It's the characteristic of the most manly man that walked on the earth.

So, to couple gentleness with firmness when it came to the truth, with the rebuking people who needed to be rebuked. He never rebuked a humble person, never. Humble broken adulteresses or despised Samaritan women.

The only people Jesus rebuked were those who tried to make money in the name of religion or those who were proud Pharisees who tried to exalt themselves in the midst of God's people. There, he didn't spare words.

He used some of the strongest words possible. How will you escape the damnation of hell? You want to see how Jesus, the real man, who walked on this earth preached. You only got to turn to Matthew 23 and look at the language he uses.

Remember, he's the gentlest and the humblest man that walked on the earth. Matthew 23, woe unto you. I mean, it's almost like saying a curse upon you people. And what does he call them? In verse 17, verse 16, you blind guides.

Verse 14, 15, hypocrites, hypocrites. Verse 13, verse 14, verse 15, hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites. Verse 16, you blind guides. Verse 17, you fools, you blind men. Verse 19, you blind men. Verse 23, you hypocrites.

Verse 25, you hypocrites. Verse 27, you hypocrites. Verse 29, you hypocrites. You people who look, verse 27, like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of dead man's bones inside. How will you, you brood of vipers, serpents?

Verse 33, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Remember, this is the humblest man that walked on the earth, but he was a man. He was not afraid. He wasn't seeking popularity and honor. That's effeminate.

It's to act like a woman when you're seeking, and you're afraid to stand up for what God wants you to stand up for, and you're afraid, timid in the wrong time. So, if you want to know what it is to be a man in God's church, just meditate on the life of Jesus and see the perfect balance of he knew whom to rebuke, and he knew whom to comfort.

Jesus Comforts the Humble and Rebukes the Proud

I think of another example where you read in Luke chapter 10, when he was in the house of Mary and Martha, and Martha was doing a good job cooking a meal for Jesus and for all the twelve others. You know, cook a meal for 13 people is not easy.

Anybody who's tried to cook a meal for 13 people will know that's not easy. It's a lot of hard work, and Mary was not helping her, and she comes to Jesus complaining. Lord, Matthew 10, Luke 10, 40, don't you care?

She's even rebuking the Lord. Lord, aren't you bothered that my sister's not helping me? You're allowing her to sit alone, and Jesus answers gently but firmly, Martha, you're worried and bothered about so many things.

If I were to paraphrase that, you know, in the Gospels, every word is not written of what Jesus said. I think it's always a gist of what he said. I think he may have said, listen, Martha, I'm not interested.

I didn't come here to eat food, first of all. That's not why I came here for. After we finish the Bible study, then we can cook something light and eat it. I'll come and help you in the kitchen. I can imagine he said something like that.

When you're worried about cooking food now, when you should be listening to God's Word, what is more important? Don't you remember what Moses taught his people? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God's mouth, and here I'm preaching God's Word, and you don't have time to listen to it.

You're busy cooking. You're worried about so many things, and Mary has chosen the good part. Yeah, where a person needed a rebuke, he would rebuke, and where people need comfort, he would comfort. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

How he would pick up children, and very tenderly, and I believe he would pray for them and bless them. It's beautiful to see the life of Jesus and his ministry, to see the type of man every one of us should become like, that perfect balance.

If you carelessly read the Gospels like storybooks, you won't regret it, but if you look at the Gospels, this is what I've sought to do for 60 years, to look at the Gospels, to see how Jesus was my example.

He said to me, all these places which I read, he tells me to follow him. I want to look at him and follow him, and yet at the same time, he was the type of man who we read in John chapter 6, after he had fed the 5 ,000, and the people were amazed, and they said in verse 14 of John 6, this is truly the prophet who has come to the world.

He never got puffed up. He never got puffed up when he did a miracle or did a preached a fantastic message. Then he realized, verse 15, they were going to make him a king, and here is the man Jesus. He withdrew into the mountains.

He ran away from there. He refused to allow them to make him a king. He said, I'm called here to be a servant. He's so different from the average preacher we come across nowadays. It's rare to find a preacher who's like Jesus, who never interested in money, never interested in letting people know his needs, and never wanting to be a leader, even though he was a leader, never wanting honor from anyone, and such dignity.

When we read in Matthew 12, when he had cast out a demon who was blind and dumb. It's a rare case, Matthew 12, 22. Somebody was both blind and dumb, possessed by a demon, and when the demon was cast out by Jesus, he both spoke and saw a double miracle.

The crowds were amazed, saying this must be the son of David. This must be the Messiah. The Pharisees said, no, he's ruled, casting out demons by, he's the ruler of demons, so he tells the demon to go.

They obey him, because he's the ruler, and Jesus says, Satan can't cast out Satan, and immediately he says, it's the only time he said this. Verse 32, if you speak a word against the son of man, he's forgiven.

That's the dignity of a man. They call him the devil, and he smiles and says, you're forgiven, and it's not only their sin that was forgiven. I find it, I call this future forgiveness. Have you heard of future forgiveness for sins not yet committed?

I see Jesus' example here, and I have to follow him. Whoever, verse 32, speaks, not you who spoke. In the next 2 ,000 years, whoever speaks a word against the son of man, it shall be forgiven. It's the future.

So, what I learned from that is, I say, Lord, I have to follow this type of forgiveness also, where from now till the end of my life, and if anybody does or says something as me, I was already forgiven right now.

Let's be forgiven. So, if you hear sometime that somebody said something as you, you must immediately say, oh, that's forgiven, or somebody did something as you, you heard about it, forgiven, forgiven.

This is a true man. A perfect balance of truth, uncompromising truth, coupled with infinite grace and balance. That's what we need to, you know, that grace and truth is something like the bones in our body represent truth, and the flesh is like grace.

It's like when, if our hands were just bones, and you shake somebody's hand, he doesn't want to hold your hand if you're totally bones. The thing that makes it soft, the strong bones in the hand, but the thing that makes it soft is the flesh on it.

It doesn't reduce any of the bones in the hand, but it's the gentle hold that we have on a man's hand, yet it's firm. It wouldn't be firm if there were no bones there. I see that's the balance that should be in our life, grace and truth, but when we are helping someone or lifting someone up, we have to be firm.

There must be bones there, otherwise you won't be able to lift him up. Bones all the way in the hand, but flesh that holds him tenderly, and it's that balance that only the Holy Spirit can produce in us.

Becoming Like Christ Through the Holy Spirit

You can hear a message like this and say, okay, I'm going to now become this or that. No, it must drive us to our knees and say, Lord, I can't make myself like Jesus. You know that there's a little book written by a Roman Catholic, it had to be written by a Roman Catholic, The Imitation of Christ.

I read it. There's many, many good things in it, but that's not what we are called to do. Imitating Christ, the Mahatma Gandhi, who was a Hindu man, who was a great leader in India, he believed in imitating Christ.

He would go and bind up the wounded legs of lepers, feet of lepers, and he would wear simple clothes and live very simply and fast often and read the Sermon on the Mount umpteen times. And he said, Jesus is my guide, Jesus is the one I follow.

But he never became a Christian. When he died, when somebody shot him, his last words were, Hey, Ram. He called out to his Hindu God when he was dying. But yet, it was an imitation of Christ. He was a very humble man, externally as a human being, greatly respected, no interest in money, no interest in honor or any such thing, but it was an imitation.

So that's not, it's not the imitation of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit making us like Christ inwardly. Because imitation or the thing is imitation is on the outside. I do things all on the outside and what about my heart and the inner man?

Whereas the Holy Spirit wants to change us in the inner man. See, 2nd Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, how do we become like Jesus? It's not by imitation. If you're under the old covenant, you know, living by rules, the law means, to live under the law means basically to live by a bunch of rules.

Maybe you can read the New Testament and follow a bunch of rules and it is old covenant spirit again. I hear many things we hear in the church, rules, get up in the morning and pray to the Father on rule number one, or don't get into debt, another rule number two.

Read the Bible every day, rule number three. And you can make lots of commandments, never get angry with your wife, rule number four. Yeah, many many good things. It's like the 10 commandments and that is what many people in the church are doing.

Making another list of commandments from the New Testament and sincerely trying to follow it. You'll be like Mahatma Gandhi, but true Christianity doesn't come from that. It's from an inner devotion to Christ.

Jesus didn't have a bunch of rules saying, I must get up in the morning and pray to the Father, or I must do this, or I must do that, I must witness to people. When a lot of Christians are propelled by rules, you know, missionaries for example, in some church the preacher gets up and says, so many people are dying in Africa, in India, what are you guys doing sitting here making money?

Come on, come volunteers to come, go and preach the gospel. And a few people are all stirred by that message and come forward and become missionaries. And some mission board will support them, they go around raising money for their support and they come to India.

And I have spent 60 years in India meeting umpteen missionaries from every English-speaking country and 90 percent of them I had zero respect for. I wish they had never crossed the ocean and come to India.

They've caused more harm than good. There are some people who have done tremendous good, there is a 10 percent like Amy Carmichael and William Carey and a few people like that. But many others I met, they were not godly, they lived at a much higher level than all the other poor people and they produced what people call rice Christians.

People who became Christians because rice is the staple food in South India, they would give them rice. Okay, I'll be a Christian. And that's done more damage to Christian work in India. And they constantly send letters abroad saying this is what I'm doing and this is what I'm doing now and then they have to get money, they won't get money if you don't send the letters.

And all the Indian people who looked at that said, oh that's how we got to serve the Lord, send letters and to foreign countries and get money. So it's all, you know, you can be an old covenant obeying some things you hear in the New Testament.

But here it says, as long as you read Moses verse 15, 2nd Corinthians 3 15, there'll be a veil over your heart. You won't be able to see Jesus. But if a person turns to the Lord, and this is the only place in the Bible where the Holy Spirit is called the Lord.

Everywhere the Lord is Jesus or the Father Jehovah. But here one place it says in verse 17, the Lord is the Spirit. So when you turn to the Holy Spirit, that veil is taken away. Then I'm not following rules.

The Holy Spirit's inside me. There's no veil now and there's a freedom. There's a liberty it says. And now the veil is gone and what do I see? Not commandments. The Holy Spirit shows me, verse 18, the glory of Jesus as a man.

How a man should live and serve. And then he shows me that glory. And if you have a longing to be like that, he transforms you inwardly into that likeness. It's not a rule you're following now, something you heard in the church that you must do.

No. Inwardly you're changed into that likeness from glory to glory. This is true Christianity, where it's not an external imitation of Christ. But so when it says in 1 John 2, 6, he who says he abides in him must walk as he walked.

I see that challenge. I must walk as he walked. And I can take up that challenge in two ways. One is by reading and seeing all that Jesus did. And I say, okay, I'll also try and do that. That is the imitation of Christ.

Or to see all that Jesus didn't say, Lord, it's impossible for me to do this. I can never find this true balance as where do I use a whip on somebody? And where do I comfort someone? And I mean, when I speak, when should my words be like a whip?

And when should my words be gentle and comforting? I don't know. Only the Holy Spirit can prompt us. And so the whole secret of the Christian life, if you want to walk as Jesus walked, is to what I call the spirit controlled life.

This is spiritual life means where the Holy Spirit has control over my inner life. And I can hear him prompting me at different situations. That's how I can be a man and fulfill my responsibility in God's kingdom.

Prophecy, Love, and Building Up the Church

So, especially in the church, you know, and let me just turn to 1 Corinthians 14. In terms of the ministry in the church, it says in 14 verse 1, pursue love when you think of serving in the church and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

That's for everybody. It's for men and women, by the way. Women also can prophesy. Many people ask that question. Can we allow a sister to share something in the church? Well, it says in 1 Corinthians 11, when a woman prophesies, verse 5, this is a woman prophesying, verse 5.

She must have her head covered. That's all it says. It doesn't say she can't prophesy. A woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered is disgracing her head. No, let her cover her head and then prophesy.

So, men and women can both prophesy, pretty clear. That cannot, so what's written later on in 1 Corinthians 14, 34, that women are to keep silent in the churches does not cancel what he said one page earlier.

Many people just look at that. I say Paul doesn't contradict himself. He says in one person, one place women can prophesy, another place he says women should be silent. We must compare scripture with scripture and say, where should they be silent?

That is what it says in, you know, that verse 1 Timothy 2, that a woman is not allowed to teach or to have authority. That's why they should be silent. If it's a position of authority or a position of teaching, she must be silent, but prophesying with her head covered, she can do it, but so we can't prophesy properly.

First of all, let me define prophecy. Prophecy in the New Testament is not foretelling the future like it was in the old covenant. In the old covenant, prophecy meant only one thing, basically foretelling the future or speaking on behalf of God, even if he didn't foretell the future.

John the Baptist was the greatest prophet. He hardly ever foretold anything about the future, but he was the greatest prophet. He was anointed to proclaim exactly what God wanted the people at that time to hear, the message of repentance, but in the new covenant, prophecy is described very clearly in verse 3 here, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 3, and this is where men must take the lead in this.

Prophesying is speaking to people, to edification, exaltation, consolation. Edification means to build them up, so all of my sharing must be directed to build people up. It's not to show how much of the Bible I know or what I say.

Will this build people up? Second, it must be something that challenges, exalt means challenge, not condemn. Exaltation is not condemnation that we see elsewhere. Spirit of condemnation is not from God.

Challenge, and the third is consolation, which is comfort. So everything I share, if it's prophecy, will always be comforting, not all of them, but at least one of them. Comforting, challenging, building up, and that need not be in a message.

It could be when I'm speaking on a phone. It could be when I'm writing an email. So it's not just in the church on Sunday morning I prophesy. You can speak to your wife and prophesy to her. Encourage, comfort, build her up.

Greatly needed. That's when a husband acts like a man, and it is a result of, verse 1, pursuing after love. Lord, let me love people. Let me love people. Then I'll be challenged to encourage them, and build them up, and comfort them.

Then I'll be challenged to encourage my wife, and build her up, and comfort her. That's what a man is supposed to be, because a man is supposed to be the leader in this ministry of prophecy. Otherwise, you'll have Deborah's taking over the job.

So pursue after love, love for Christ, and love for people. So I don't believe, according to verse 1 here, that I can effectively prophesy even on a phone, or in an email, or in a church, if I don't love the person or the people I'm talking to.

In other words, I start with prophecy, and ignore the first two words that are in verse 1. Pursue after love, and desire earnestly to prophesy. I ignore the first thing, and I say this is what happened to so many people.