The Great Pursuit

Monday Devotion

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

1 John 4:7–12

“How’d your day go?”

“Fine.”

“Anything important happen?”

“Not really.”

Similar conversations take place every day in SUVs and kitchens all across the country. What many of us don’t realize—particularly those of us who give up too easily—is that we model our heavenly Father’s love for us when we pursue our children. I don’t want my kids to think I tolerate them or endure them. I want them to remember that I pursued them, in part because that’s the nature of the love with which God has loved me. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

While we were yet in our sins, God pursued us (Romans 5:8, 10). He took the initiative; he made the effort: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).

Without this notion of initiating love, it’s easy to let parenting slip into what we don’t do: I don’t beat my children, I don’t yell at them, I don’t come home drunk, I don’t swear in front of them, and so forth. But love works by a much more proactive policy. Love is a long hug. Love is taking time to talk. Love seeks the other. Love goes on the offensive. It takes action: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).