After God's Own Heart

Are you pursuing God? Are you living a life in pursuit of God? Are you a man or woman after God's own heart, like King David was?

I don't know about you, but when I die, I want people to remember me as a man after God's own heart. At my funeral, I want the eulogist to remember me as a man who used his lifetime to pursue God. I don't want to waste my life. I don't want to be an old man and realize that my whole life was a waste. That's always been one of my biggest fears. I don't want to be burdened by regret when I am old. I don't want to lay awake at night paralyzed by the knowledge that I could have and should have done more with my life. I want my life to count. I want to be proud of my life. I want to get to the end and be content with my life. I want to know that I used my life for the glory of God. I want my life to be a lifelong pursuit of my Creator and Savior. I want my life to be the result of my desire and passion to know Christ.

I want my life to count, to matter, to be something. I don't have to be written about in history books or be a household name. If that happened, that'd be really cool and it'd be all the more glory to God. But honestly, I just want to know Christ. The rest is inconsequential. Nothing is as important to me as my relationship with Christ. It's the only thing with eternal relevance. Your pursuit of God is the most important and most critical part of your life. And it all comes down to your desire for God. If you don't desire God, if you don't want Him, then you aren't actually following Him.

You see, a relationship with God is in some ways similar to all other relationships. If you have a special someone, then you want to be with that person because you really like him or her. You may even love that person. You want to spend every waking moment with that person because your attraction is so strong and so focused. And it's the same way with God. If God is special to you, you'll spend time in prayer. You'll read your Bible, and what you read will change you. If you desire God and thus pursue Him, He will become your everything. Every little thing in your life will be centered on God. He becomes everything you live for. He becomes Someone worth dying for.

I have here a quote from A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God. Tozer writes, "I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain."

If you want to follow Christ, then you have to have the acute desire that Tozer talks about. You have to want God. You have to desire God. Otherwise, your religion is dead, your faith is nonexistant, and you are a fake. If you don't desire God, if you aren't in pursuit of Him, then you are not a Christian.