Pursuing the KING

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There is an interesting paradox in the Christian faith. There is without question an indescribable joy in finding and discovering God while at the same time our pursuit of God never ends. How can that be?
I purposely picked the word “pursue” because it’s a strong verb. No meandering here. We’re not just strolling or wandering. Pursuing sounds like we’re almost rushed. One dictionary defined pur-sue like this, “to chase after someone...intentionally.” I’m not talking about chasing someone in a creepy, stalking kind of way. I am talking about
chasing God. And guess what? He likes to be caught!

We want to pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No one can come to Me," Jesus said, "unless the Father who sent Me draws him." In other words, the impulse to pursue God originates with God.

Inside the Christmas story, we see this pursuit. It is a pursuit of a King. Herod was pursuing a King, but his motives were selfish and evil. That wrong pursuit led him to carry out atrocities one can hardly imagine. Counter that with the pursuit of the Wisemen. Their search brought them to a surprising, amazing discovery of a child.

Don’t fall trap to one sided pursuits. Don’t let God do all the pursuing of your heart. The Holy Spirit is unrelenting, but He can also be ignored. That neglect can leave you empty; however, pursuing God openly and genuinely will lead to surprising discoveries.

A recently retired New York man and his wife decided to buy a home and a few acres in
Portugal for retirement. They found a perfect and out of the way farm at a decent price. The modest farm had been vacant for 15 years; the owner and wife both had died, and there were no heirs.

The estate was being sold to pay back taxes. There had been several lookers, but the large barn had steel doors, and they had been welded shut. No one wanted to go to the extra expense to see what was in the barn, and it wasn’t complimentary to the property anyway... (Basically an eyesore) so, no one made an offer on the place.

The New York couple bought it as is, paying about half the property’s worth; moved in, and set about to access the barn... curiosity was killing them. So, they bought a generator and a couple of grinders...and cut through the welds.

Amazingly, the barn was full of vintage cars...rare vintage cars like several Aston Martins, BMW’s,Formula Racers, Austin Healeys, Porsche’s, Mercedes, Volvo’s, vintage Fords and Chryslers, and one Yugo. The total value of all the exotic vehicles... just over 35 million dollars. That had to be a surprising discovery.

2000 years ago, there was another treasure discovered in a barn. That treasure was born King of Kings, and you can discover the thrill of pursuing Him.

Every journey has a beginning, followed by many points along the way. Wherever you are on this adventure with God, do not stop or settle or think you have "arrived." As the Apostle Paul pointed out, “I keep pressing on toward the goal.”

[Ron Otto, preaching minister
Lincoln Christian Church]

 

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