1 Corinthians 14:1
Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.
In the secular world, there are people who call their profession a practice. For instance, a lawyer will say that he practices the law. A doctor will say that he practices medicine. In other words, they follow their profession and study what their profession needs so that they can apply what they have learned to help those who come for help.
The Christian also has a practice. When God says, Follow after, He is saying this is your practice. Your profession should be to be a Christian. Your practice is to study and apply three things to your life. You will notice that part of the Christian practice is charity, spiritual gifts, and to prophesy. However, the order we are to follow in these areas is often misconstrued. God’s order in this practice is to prophesy, then have charity, and last of all, you are to desire spiritual gifts. Unspiritual people reverse God’s order, but God’s order always results in the most souls saved, and the most people helped through your life. Let me explain this critical teaching that God shows in this verse.
My first priority as a believer is to prophesy. This is not talking about foretelling the future, but it is talking about preaching the Gospel to the lost. My first priority as a believer is to give the Gospel to every lost person God places in my pathway each day.
My second priority is charity. I am not to lay aside soul winning for the sake of charity, but I am to add charity to my soul winning. Charity is investing your life in others. The only reason you would invest your life in others is because you love them. How do you get this love for others so that you would invest in them? You get charity by preaching the Gospel. If you spread the Gospel through soul winning, you will find charity is a natural byproduct of soul winning.
My third priority is to desire spiritual gifts. Why should we desire spiritual gifts? We should desire them because they will help us to better invest our lives in those to whom we are giving the Gospel. God will start giving you gifts if you will invest your love in others, but this all starts by being a soul winner.
Now, if I were to choose one of these practices, I would choose to preach the Gospel. It is always better to preach the Gospel, even if I don't have charity or spiritual gifts. Too many are more concerned with developing their spiritual gifts than they are with developing the ability to spread the Gospel through soul winning. Yes, the soul winner would be a better soul winner with charity and spiritual gifts, but there is no purpose for charity and spiritual gifts if you are not a soul winner.
My friend, the greatest thing you can do in the Christian profession is to practice being a soul winner. You will find that charity naturally comes AS you give the Gospel to others. I can testify that it is not hard to invest love in those that you lead to Christ. Love for others comes as a result of being a soul winner. Christ had compassion on the multitudes AFTER He was among them. Let me challenge you to focus on the practice of soul winning, and you will find that God will give you charity by spreading His love to others, and He will give you spiritual gifts so you can better help those who He leads across your path.
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