God Pursues a Love Relationship
Memory verse: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-38)
God always takes the initiative in our love relationship. The witness of the entire Bible testifies that God pursues us and orchestrates ways for us to experience Him. He came to Adam and Eve in the garden. In love He had fellowship with them and they with Him. He came to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. God took the initiative for each person in the Old Testament to experience Him in a personal fellowship of love. In the New Testament Jesus approached His disciples and chose them to be with Him and to experience His love. He came to Paul on the Damascus road.
In our natural human state, we do not seek God on our own initiative.
Read the Scripture and answer the questions
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)
How many people are naturally righteous?
How many people understand spiritual truths on their own?
How many people naturally seek God?
How many people instinctively do good?
No one! Not even one! Sin has marred us so deeply, no one seeks God on their own initiative. Therefore, if we are to have a relationship with Him and His Son, God must take initiative. That is exactly what He does.
Read the Scripture and answer the questions
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. t is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me… And he said, “this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:44-45, 65)
Who can come to Jesus without being drawn by the Father?
What does a person do who listens to the Father and learn from Him?
What is the only way a person can come to Jesus?
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you (Jeremiah 31:3)
I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (Hosea 11:4)
The love God focuses on your life is an everlasting love. From that love He has pursued you. He has drawn you with cords of love when you were not His friend but His enemy. He gave His own Son to die for you. To firmly anchor your experiencing God and knowing His will, you must be absolutely convinced of God’s love for you.