God pursues us

I cannot get this thought out of my mind … God relentlessly loves and pursues me.  Some people say that is arrogant or selfish.  Yet the Bible tells us and our experience backs up the fact that God loves us and pursues us all the time.

Psalm 23:6  NLT

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

That verse is from one of the most used and most famous chapters of the Bible that begins with “The Lord is my shepherd” and ends with His “unfailing love” pursuing us.  Dig a little deeper…

Psalm 23:6  MSG

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.  I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.

I love that phrase.  Literally the love of God chases after me every day.  What an incredible fact for us to comprehend.  Our God is in a relentless pursuit that He will not stop because His purpose is to love people, and I am included.

How wonderful it is to be able to share with others and watch God convince people of His love.  It is not something that we, or anyone, deserves.  It is the foundation of our lives displayed through Jesus and helping us connect to God and to the people around us.

God is pursuing people.  He doesn’t seek to manipulate people or to get them to do what He wants.  His desire is for their and our good. 

Jeremiah 31:3  NLT

Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.  With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.

The intimate relationship between God and His people is an example of what our families and our churches are to be able.  Love helps us accept others.  Unconditional love allows us to overlook what most of the world cannot get around.

Forgiveness and grace are pieces of God’s love that His pursuit took me by storm.  The kind of storm that people were not expecting and blew through to change everything around them.  God’s love changes us as we experiences it and Him.

Romans 5:8  NLT

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

While I didn’t deserve His love … while I was pursuing other things … while I wasn’t thinking about and didn’t want God at all.  That verse is one we ought to commit to memory, to repeat often and to share with others.  His pursuit of people takes us places we cannot take ourselves. 

When we understand that God pursues us, we will begin to love others.  But remember it is not about us, not at all. 

1 John 4:19  NLT

We love each other because he loved us first.