“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” — Psalm 23:6 (ESV)
God’s Relentless Pursuit
The foundation for our faith is not meant to be built on our works or our understanding, but rather on God’s relentless pursuit of us. We have relationship with our Creator not because we sought Him out, but because He is always pursuing us. Any elements of Christian spirituality at work in our lives are the result of His constant grace drawing us deeper and deeper into the abundant life Jesus died to give us. Faith built on anything else but God’s pursuit is faith built on our own strength — an unsure and consistently failing foundation.
Ephesians 1:16-18 (ESV) says: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.”
If we need a fresh understanding of God’s pursuit, we need only to pray as Paul did: asking God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts. We need only to look to the pages of Scripture and see story after story of God pursuing those who rebelled against Him. The entire Book of Hosea describes the heart of God to pursue Israel in a real-life metaphor of Hosea pursuing Gomer, who time and time again left him to prostitute herself.
There is nothing we could do to keep God from pursuing us. There is no sin too great, no distance we could run, that would discourage God from loving us. From the moment you were born, God has been pursuing your heart. His greatest longing is for relationship with us. Don’t let a wrong understanding of who God is cause your relationship with Him to be works-based. Don’t let your sin and failures get in the way of running to the open arms of your Heavenly Father.
God is after your heart right now. He’s sweetly knocking on the door of your heart that you might simply let Him in. More than He wants you to do something for Him today, He simply wants you to know He is with you and for you. Respond to God’s pursuit today by giving Him your heart. May your time of prayer be marked by a revelation of His loving-kindness toward you.
— Craig Denison, First 15
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