In fact, it says,
“The message is very close at hand;
it is on your lips and in your heart.”
And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.
This verse in Romans 10 is the foundation of the gospel. The gospel is about our hearts not our minds. It clearly states we must believe with our hearts, not our minds. We can’t just believe in Jesus just because we don’t want to go to hell. James 2:19 tells us that even the demons believe and tremble. It is true we can’t earn our salvation by our actions. Still, many people think that because we can’t earn salvation, our actions don’t matter. James 2 tells us faith without actions is dead. Our actions matter because they show we have living faith. We show belief in our hearts, not just with our minds. Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it is impossible to please God, and we must diligently, sincerely, or earnestly seek him. Either way, it depicts a daily and intense seeking. So according to this verse our first faith action should be to seek God. We refer to this as the pursuit of God. We should all be pursuing God and what does that look like?
Pursuit means chasing or trying to catch something. It is to achieve a goal over time. It can also be a regular activity or a hobby. I think this perfectly defines what a relationship with God should look like. We should chase him to catch him. It should be our regular activity or hobby. A hobby is something you enjoy doing. You wish to do it in your free time or whenever you can. Romans 8:35 says nothing can separate us from God’s love so God’s love is not in question. God loves us whether we seek him or not. We don’t pursue God to try and make him love us more, we seek him because we love him. So the question is do you love God and if you love God would you not seek him? We won’t pursue God unless we truly fall in love with him. This happens when we meditate, contemplate and dwell on the fact that God loves us
Pursuing God looks like a romantic relationship. We should be so in love with God that everything we do flows from that. Ephesians 6:7 say ” work with enthusiasm, as though you are working for the Lord rather that for people. ” We should be so in love with God that everything we do flows from that love.
Jesus says in John 14:15 if you love me, keep my commandments. Pursuit of God starts with obedience; we must obey his commands.Luke 11:28 Jesus says “ blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it”. This once again stresses obedience but we can’t keep God’s word if we don’t know it. David said in Psalm 119:11 “I hide your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”. So our next step in pursuit of God is to read, study and memories God’s word. We can’t pursue someone we don’t talk to that makes our next step to pray. Prayer is not just talking to God it is also listening to him. Sometimes it is just being quite and still other times it is a dialogue. Sometimes I even talk to him about his word. Pray should start with God’s word because we don’t want to pray amiss James 4:3 . 1 John 5:14 says we should pray according to God’s will. We can’t know God’s will if we don’t look to his word. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says “pray without ceasing” this means we continually dialogue with him through out our day. This means we constantly bring things to God. If you are angry bring to God. If you are sad bring it to God. If you are happy bring it to God. Thanksgiving is also prayer so anytime during the day you recognize God’s hand thank him that is prayer.
I myself have struggled with God’s love for me. I have had questions about whether he truly loves me. Does he see me? Am I just one in a sea of people? The more I realize that God loves me, the more I understand that he sees me as his daughter. He bought me with the life of his son. The more I fall in love with him the more I want to pursue him and his heart. My pursuit is not about chasing his favor or his love. No, he can’t love me any more than he already does. It is about capturing his heart and loving him as much as he loves me. Loving him as much as he loves me will make it easy to lay my life down. Then, I can take up my cross and follow him. The closer I get to his heart, the more worldly things fall away. All I want is him. My prayer for you is that you first will know the love of God. Then, you will fall so in love with him. You will want to pursue him with all your heart.
Leave a Reply