Pursuing The One True God

We pursue God because we are pursued by Him. We aren’t thrown to the wind by Him to see if we can find out way Home alone. He pursues us. He draws us. Even as we seek Him, He is the One in control.

Jesus says that no one comes to Him unless the Father draws him. Each step of the way, each time I wistfully looked farther down the road hungering for a Reality that I was so sure of and yet so unclear about, He was there guiding me, drawing me, pursuing me in my pursuit of Him.

The legalistic thinking of my childhood clouded my mind for many years: we do because we must. A reverent fear of a holy God is good but a scary God terrifies us, causing us to follow more out of fear than of love: this I knew intimately. I feared God even as I loved Him but I feared Him for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. Everything I thought I knew about Him was wrong. As I pursued Him (as He was pursuing me) God began to reveal Himself to me as Someone that I could trust, Who wasn’t waiting on me to fail, Who wasn’t capricious, Who really and truly loved me–not because of me (the most unworthy of sinners) but because of Himself.

God guided me through the legalism of my past, through the mine-field of modern Christian teaching, through my own doubts and fears. Drawing me, guiding me, teaching me, He led me firmly into the truth of His holy Word. Each step of the way, I thought I was alone and in control (such was the “Christian” teaching I had heard); each step of the way, God proved He alone was in control: I sought God because God sought me.

He planted within me the desire to pursue truth. He filled me with a hunger for holy things. He drove me to prayer and guided me as my prayers slowly changed from me-centered “help me” prayers to God focused, Cross-centered prayers. He led me from seeing the Bible as a list of rules to be followed and a bunch of dry history with no connection to me or my times to a passionate all-consuming consumption of God’s Word and a constant longing for more of Him.

He guided me as I sought the God I was now catching glimpses of. Slowly the angry “god” of my childhood disappeared, the modern thinking anything goes “god” packed up and left. The Great I Am took His rightful place as the only One in my life. The Holy, Holy, Holy, loving and merciful God of Scriptures Whose righteous and rightful wrath towards sin caused Him to slay His Son for me caused me to now have a reverent and holy fear of Him. I was awed beyond belief. He was demanding, He was powerful, He deserved to be feared, but, oh the amazing truth was that He also loved me. He really, really, really loved me. I who had never known true unselfish love of any kind was suddenly faced with the most amazing love possible. His grace saved me. His mercy was enduring. He sent His Son to die for me; how could I not now live for Him?

Scriptures now made complete sense. When He tore away the veneer of false teaching, the fakeness of modern Christianity and the man-centered socially acceptable gospel, I was left with the true God of the Scriptures, and along with Him, the true Gospel: God the Father sacrificed Jesus so that I wouldn’t have to die the eternal second death in hell that I so deserved.

When I look to the cross now, I see my name above it. Tacked beneath my name is a list of my crimes: my sins cause me the deepest shame possible. I am guilty of treason. I am guilty of murder. I am guilty of idolatry. I am guilty. In my place however is the One Who is holy, holy, holy…suffering, bleeding, dying in agony for me…for me.

He took my place. He sought me. He bade me to come to Him. He loved me when I deserved only death. I pursued the One Who was pursuing me all along. In finding Him, I found everything worth wanting or having. Life everlasting begins with knowing Him. It is what makes heaven, heaven. We can never fully know Him but we can know Him deeper, better, more intimately. He reveals Himself to us even as He pursues us. When we find Him and know Him as the One True God, we come to realize the most incredible truth: we the pursuer of God are we the pursued by God.