Maralyn Mathias, a friend and a missionary, wrote the following in her blog just a couple of days before going to be with Jesus due to ALS. “The only thing that makes me sad is realizing that this intimate friendship with him has been available to me all throughout my life, and I never chose it until now. I missed it … big-time! I guess I was always so busy with my lists, projects, plans and events that I was too occupied to be open to such an idea. Oh, I did my devotions, but so often because I knew I ‘should.’”
Every time I read these words, I am humbled and challenged. Maralyn had been a faithful “devotion doer” but it took a debilitating disease to help her become a “passionate pursuer” of God. This begs the question, “Are you a ‘devotion doer’ or a ‘passionate pursuer’?” At the beginning of 2020, when many make a fresh commitment to read through the Bible in a year, I want to encourage you to not just be a faithful “devotion doer” but to become an intentional “passionate pursuer”.
The Bible portrays Jesus as a Passionate Pursuer! Jesus’ passionate pursuit of deepening his relationship with his Heavenly Father was seen in his spiritual disciplines. He strengthened that relationship through studying the Scriptures, prayer and fasting, and public worship. His passion for his Heavenly Father is further seen in his commitment to pleasing Him in his life & ministry. “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).
God’s Word also reveals the truth that God is passionately pursuing you. He wants you to have a reconciled, personal, and close relationship with Him! He is not obligated to do so. However, because of His unconditional, everlasting love, He chooses to do. You are the “apple of His eye”; i.e. the center of His attention (Psalm 17:8).
A passionate pursuer says, “I want to know Jesus more and more!” The Psalmist gives us a great illustration of this in Psalm 42:1-2. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” Like a deer that pants for water, my thirst for Jesus deepens my daily discipline and increases my delight. Becoming a passionate pursuer means you integrate your head and your heart. J.I. Packer in Knowing God describes this when he writes, “How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? … It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.”
Maralyn,, in her blog, concluded, “Here’s a piece of motherly advice: Don’t wait until you have a terminal illness to seek a true friendship with Jesus. It takes setting aside some less important things. It takes listening. It takes openness. But it’s so worth it! I hope you become literally thirsty for Jesus.” My prayer for you in 2020 is while you are faithful in doing your devotions you would also be intentional in seeking to know and become like Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength!