Pursue

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

PURSUE

Prov 21:21

21 He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.

NIV

A very positive statement. The idea is first we should pursue righteousness. What is righteousness, or better yet the question should be, who is righteousness?

Phil 3:7-11

7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

NIV

The scriptures are full of this word righteousness. We are admonished to pursue it over and over again.

Matt 6:33-34

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness , and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

NIV

When we follow after the righteousness that comes from God our lives will be filled with first the love of God, then our love for God and finally our love for our fellow man. But this all hinges on the fact that we are pursuing righteousness. In the sense that Jesus is our righteousness, then we should be pursuing Jesus. True we have him in our heart if we ask him, as to say we are saved because we accepted him as Lord and Savior. But are we making him the first priority of our lives? Is becoming more like Jesus our first and foremost driving force of our life? We should consider if we are more engaged in the self-sustaining efforts of life, that is fame and fortune, maybe not even the fame, but just the pursuit of making an abundant life for ourselves, then we are not pursuing after Jesus. Yes, we need to work. Yes we need an income to support our way of life. Yes, we need the food, clothes, cars, homes and all the other stuff. But Jesus tells us to seek him first and foremost and he will add all the stuff to us. Have we gotten a little out of whack in our method of life? If we want true life, everlasting life, as well as the good life in the here and now and prosperity and honor then we seek the righteousness that comes from God first. Everything else is secondary. How easy it is to become distracted from our first love. How easy it is for life itself to become a distraction. How easy it is to become anxious about tomorrow, about next year, or the years to come. How easy it is to become so engaged in the worries of having enough money to have the things we want. Life just has a way of pushing itself up front and in our face. But we need to sit back, relax, take a breath and see the hand of God at work in our lives. We need to take hold of that truth, he is our all in all. He is the reason we have life in the first place. He created us to be his crowning glory. We belong to God. Our lives are in his hands and therefore we need to pursue him, pursue his righteousness in our lives. This should be our number one course of action in our lives. Then we can enjoy the peace of God, the rest of God, the love of God, the prosperity of God, the honor of God. To have God give us honor, to have him say, as he did of David, “This is a man after my own heart” That is a true honor. Let us seek, let us chase after, let is pursue God.