What are you pursuing right now?
Do not casually brush this question off just to continue reading this article. Be honest with yourself and answer this question first before you continue.
A New Path
Millions of men, even Christian men, find themselves pursuing the wrong things in life, wasting their time - and often, only setting themselves up for hurt… Time passes quickly, and they can never go back in time to do it over again, leaving a heart full of regret.
I used to be one of those men. I pursued the wrong things with all my fleshly might, and it brought nothing but suffering, sadness, and emptiness. I was lost, and without purpose, like a boat adrift without a rudder on the vast ocean, driven and tossed around by the wind.
I lost two brothers during this time, but after the loss of my second brother, I had a powerful encounter with the living God. As I sat beside my brother’s lifeless body, God revealed to me just how lost I really was. If I had died instead of my brother, I would have deserved hell. I saw how temporary this dark world is, that my life is but a vapor, how meaningless it is to try and gain the world but lose my soul for all eternity.
It was at that moment I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior and asked Him to direct my paths. He made me a new creation, and everything changed…I stopped pursuing earthly, temporary things and started pursuing Him with my whole heart and soul! He gave me the rudder, the drive, to want to put Him first in my life and to follow His will in everything. God gave me a new life and a burning desire to earnestly pursue Him!
What are you pursuing?
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The Road of Sanctification
After I became a reborn Christian, I was thirsty for His Word, His love, His care, His wisdom, His everything! I wanted God to say to me, just like He said to David, “This is a man after My heart’” (1 Samuel 13:14)!
God showed me that I was pursuing the wrong things, things that did not matter at all when I focused on the things above (Colossians 3:2). He showed me that when I put Him first in my life, all the other things will fall into place (Matthew 6:33). The Bible became alive to me with the help of the Holy Spirit - a lamp for my feet on this new amazing journey.
I started pursuing God boldly, learning more about Him, learning how to abide in Him, and how to love Him! I realized that when God is at the center of my life, I will automatically pursue the right things - the things that are actually worth pursuing, and I will be successful in these pursuits because God equips me to accomplish His plan for my life!!
This was a life-changing lesson, to learn that there are not really any ups or downs in life, only a road of sanctification, where I do not walk alone but with Christ every step of the way. This is the road where He uses all things together (the good and the bad) for good toward those who put Him and His righteousness first (Romans 8:28).
I learned that we can know God deeper and fuller, and pursue Him with confidence whenever we need help or guidance!
Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” God taught me what it means to have a true relationship with Him and to worship Him in truth and in the Spirit (John 4:24).
What are you pursuing?
In Spirit and Truth!
True Christians serve God in Spirit and Truth. We have to come to the truth about ourselves and our sins, and also come to the truth of who God really is. Then we need to worship Him through the Spirit because He is Spirit - we cannot worship God if we are spiritually dead. So many men today try to worship God only on their soul level with their emotions, intellect, and will. They practice dead religion and think they are Christians. They have never been spiritually reborn (John 3:1-15).
Are you one of them?
Are you a lukewarm Christian?
God says in Revelation 3:16, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” God does not call us to practice dead religion, He calls us to radical discipleship - to follow Him and love Him with everything we are (Matt 22:37)!
If you do not deny your own self-determining “will”, submit yourself under God’s will, and pick up your cross to follow Jesus, then you cannot call yourself a reborn Christian (Matthew 16:24).
What are you pursuing?
Examine Yourself
Are you a child of God who worships Him in Spirit and Truth? There are men out there who call themselves Christians, but they deceive themselves. Their faith is like a switch they turn on and off on certain days, and they do not realize their “faith” is in reality just normal “man-made tradition” - “dead religion.” They go to church on Sundays, but have not experienced regeneration! Are you one of those men?
Jesus says this is what will happen to those who practice dead religion:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Does God know you? Do you know Him?
What are you pursuing?
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You Are in a Time of Grace!
You cannot deceive God, He sees right through you, and your hourglass is running out. If you do not take God and His Word seriously, while you are still breathing in this temporary world, it will be too late. You are now living in a time of grace, but every tick on the clock is a second closer to your death - another second that God’s grace has yet not run out.
I personally want to encourage you to seek God with all your heart and soul before it is too late.
James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
Do you have an unquenchable thirst in you to know the God of the universe personally? Do you have a deep desire to not only be saved and receive eternal life, but to know Him intimately?
Do not waste your life. Start to seek God today - not only to receive eternal life, but to have life abundantly (John 10:10)! He will show you who you really are, your identity in Christ, your spiritual gifts, your purpose, and so much more. As you discover more of God, His peace, His joy, His gifts, and His love, you will realize that life is not about you, but that everything is about Him - and it always has been!
What are you pursuing?
Deny the “Self”!
In this day and age, the “self”-life is pushed down our throats every day. When you scroll down on social media, you see “self,” “self,” and “self” everywhere, self-improvement, self-respect, self-love, self this, and self that! But Jesus calls us to deny our “self”!
The great commandment is not to love one’s “self” but to love God, and then to love your neighbor as yourself! The Bible says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4).
Do your goals in life focus on God and those around you, or are they based on what your own fleshly nature wants - the “self”-life? We have to come to that point in our lives where we fall to our knees and say, like David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24)!
Are there still things in your life keeping you from God?
What are you pursuing?
Complete Surrender!
Every believer must not only accept Christ as Savior, but also come to the point of complete surrender. This is how we start to live a purpose-driven life where we pursue the right things according to God’s will. If we don’t, then we are wasting our lives and might not even be true Christians in the first place. Mark 8:36 says, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
Living life in the flesh according to the “self”-life is a waste - a chase after nothingness, and the consequence of such a life will be hell for all eternity (Matthew 25:46). Remember, this life on Earth is so short and we are not promised tomorrow. Two of my brothers died in their early twenties, my first brother, Jano, was shot three times in the chest, and my second brother, Etienne, died in a car crash.
Let me ask you again, “What are you really pursuing?”
I wrote Bold Pursuit, to pierce through all the noise of the world and bring men to The Cross, to pick up their own cross and to truly follow Christ with all their heart, soul, and mind - to do so in Truth and in the Spirit!
May God, who is full of mercy and grace, use this small article to open your eyes to turn back to Christ fully, to turn back to His Word, and to boldly approach His throne and say,
“Lord, here I am, I am willing to deny myself and to follow You until my last breath! Search my heart, Lord, remove everything that is not right in Your eyes, and lead me on the path You have planned for me even before I was born.
Show me the way, I fully surrender to Your Will!
Let me ask you one last time, what are you truly pursuing?
Every answer without Christ in it is the wrong answer.
Related Resource: From Basketball Courts to Podcast Studios: John Stockton's Fight for Freedom
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Originally published Thursday, 17 August 2023.
