I don’t really know what I am supposed to write about for my World Race Preparation blogs, but it seems like a good idea to write what God has laid on my heart. Therefore the next several blogs with all be more like Bible Studies than personal stories. The title of this series of blogs is “God’s Relentless Pursuit”. Over the World Race application process it has been obvious to me that the Lord has been pursuing me. I talked a little bit about how He has been pursuing me in my previous blog and I will talk more about how He pursued me in a later blog titled “God’s Relentless Pursuit: this is the Voice of the Shepherd”. The other entries in this series will focus on faith, hope, and love. In this blog I am going to talk about how God’s relentlessly pursues us through His love.
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:13
“This is the Heart of the Father” was the title of a manuscript study in Luke 15:11-31 during the InterVarsity Winter Conference that I attended this past January. This passage in Luke focuses on the story of the prodigal son. Yet as I learned more about this passage, it isn’t as much about the son but more about the Father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
— Luke 15:20
There are four things I see from this verse. First, the father is looking for his son; it would have been hard to see the son far off in the distance unless the father was anticipating and looking for his son to return home. Second, the father was merciful towards the son; the father had the right to chastise his son, but the father was filled will compassion and chose to forgive him rather than rebuke him. Third, the father ran to his son; during Jesus’ time, running would have offended the whole community. However the father didn’t want to waste any time welcoming back his son. Fourth, the father didn’t just welcome his son back, He embraced him and threw a huge celebration. This parable highlights the heart of the father; it shows us just how much the father loves his son despite all the son has done.
There is more to this parable that I would like to point out. But first, it is important to note that this parable is the third parable in a row about something being lost. In the verses just before this parable, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd, even if he loses one sheep will go out and search for the lost sheep and rejoice when he has found it. Jesus continues saying…
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
— Luke 15:7
So how does this relate to the parable of the Father’s Heart? It is in the Father’s heart to purse the lost. Sometimes this entails the Father going out and searching for the lost, but the Father didn’t search for the prodigal son. No, He didn’t go out and physically search for him, but He was continuously searching the horizon for His son and when He saw him, the Father pursued him and embraced him. So how does this apply to me, I don’t appear to have wandered away from the fold of God, yet…
“All [of us] like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;”
— Isaiah 53:6
We are all lost sheep in need of a shepherd to go out and search for us, and once we have been brought into the fold, we are told to…
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always.”
— Matthew 28:19
God has now given me an opportunity to go and seek the lost so that they may come to know Him, as their personal Lord and Savior. As I think about seeking the lost in any one of the eleven countries God is sending me to, the song “Relentless” comes to mind.
What sticks out from this song is the bridge…
“Tearing through the veil of darkness
Breaking every chain, You set us free
Fighting for the furthest heart
You gave Your own life
Your Love is Relentless”
— Relentless by Hillsong UNITED
Fighting for the furthest heart, that is what I want my mindset to be when I am on the World Race. I know that every day will my team will have to…
“Put on the whole armor of God, that [we] may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
— Ephesians 6:11-12
We will have to fight every day to share the Love of God with everyone, but especially those who are unreached, the furthest hearts. Therefore I long to relentlessly pursue God as much as He relentlessly pursues me, that God will give me a heart to fight for the furthest heart. I pray that God would place an unquenchable desire in my heart to fight for the furthest heart, because I cannot do on my own. The only reason why I can love the lost is that…
“We love because He first loved us.”
— 1 John 4:19
I could go on and on about the Love of God…
“To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.”
— The Love of God by Frederick Lehman
The Love of God is so overwhelming that I could keep on writing but as the song above states, I couldn’t ever capture the Love of God on paper and pen. Pray for me as I long to relentlessly pursue God. Pray that me and my team would all relentlessly purse God that we might grow closer to Him and function as a united body of Christ. Pray that we would know that God is relentlessly pursuing us when obstacles darken our path and demons might haunt our dreams. Pray that God would give us all the heart of the Father that we might fight for the furthest heart.
