3 Truths About Pursuing Jesus in Your Daily Life
There comes a time for us all when we simply fall out of love for pursuing Jesus daily.
Sometimes it’s only a day or two, sometimes the days stretch into months or years. The excitement of pursuing God has waned, and the reality in front of our eyes takes precedence over all else.
Have you ever struggled with this?
Pursuing Jesus in Your Everyday
Seeking Jesus daily feels like one more thing you don’t have time for today.
But you desire that to change. You yearn to pursue Jesus in a way that changes your everyday and causes the angels to glorify His Name.
Sometimes it takes a bit of a reality check — a Christ-centered reality check — to guide us back toward a daily pursuit of Jesus.
3 Truths About Pursuing Jesus
Pursuing Jesus looks like a relationship that grows daily.
You spend time with Him through Scripture and prayer.
You seek Him when you need wisdom.
You pour out your heart to Him when you need to process something.
You listen to His voice as He communicates with you.
So how do we not fall prey to the shiny things that easily distract us from pursuing more of Jesus?
(My subscription box has lots of tangible resources for you to do this very thing — don’t just read about pursuing Jesus, but actually put it into practice! Learn more here!)
While there are plenty of articles out there with tips on the how — don’t just read but actually study your Bible, take moments to pause and give thanks, etc. — it’s also important to understand these three truths about pursuing Jesus in your daily life.
These truths will help remind you of why it’s so incredibly important to be a follower of Jesus who is ready to pursue more of Him daily, and not just a believer who checks the boxes for what a Christian day looks like.
Pursuing Jesus Truth #1: Satan wants you in this spot.
This might sound dramatic, but it’s true. Our enemy doesn’t just want to keep people from staying dead in their sin. He also desires to keep us from a close relationship with Jesus.
Satan wants you bored in your faith.
He wants you complacent.
He wants you to care more about your own desires than the desires of Jesus.
He does not want you to pursue more of Christ.
Satan is rather tricky, too. Daily life with Jesus is more rewarding, more fulfilling, more extraordinary than any other kind of life. But Satan takes this extraordinary and paints it as simply ordinary to our eyes.
He shows us the extravagance of this world and whispers that life with Christ doesn’t provide us with those wonders. His goal is for us to pursue anything but Jesus so we will not give God glory daily. So we will not help grow His kingdom.
Peter talks of this attitude of the enemy:
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
No, Satan cannot snatch you out of the Father’s hand. But he can entice you to not pursue Jesus, making you the most ineffective believer possible.
Pursuing Jesus Truth #2: Your life will always feel empty without Jesus
You were made for something greater. Your soul longs for heaven. All the cravings you have, all the yearnings and aches you experience, they’re easy to confuse with what we know of this life.
What we know is a beautiful, comfortable home.
Beautiful children who pursue Jesus themselves.
A comfortable routine that has stints of adventure mixed in multiple times a year.
A bank account that reminds us we’ll probably never have to worry too much about spending.
When we ache at the end of our day, we often look to these things as the reason for our ache. It’s easy to think the ache will soothe once that renovation is completed or once our schedules slow down and we can travel again.
But the true source of our ache? We need more of Jesus. We’re longing for our eternal home and the arms of our Heavenly Father.
Paul understood this ache. He called it a longing, a groaning.
“For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”
And this ache will only grow deeper unless we pursue Jesus daily. No, don’t simply pursue Him for the comfort it brings. But pursue Him because He’s the only hope worth pursuing.
Life will feel empty without Him. So if you want your daily life to feel filled with purpose, pursue more of Jesus.
Pursuing Jesus Truth #3: He longs to look into your eyes
Who is the most important person in your life? You probably spend more than a few minutes a day chatting with that person. Just a little bit of time once a day wouldn’t be enough.
Why do we do this with Jesus? We spend a bit of time with Him at some point throughout our day, and we call it good. But Jesus wants more.
Jesus wants an ongoing relationship with you. He desires for you to turn your gaze upon Him in pursuit of Him. And that looks like more than sitting down with your Bible.
Did you know your gaze captivates God? The writer of Song of Solomon uses beautiful poetry about marriage to cast a reflection of how God loves us, His bride. God reveals His longing and love for us in words we can understand, using a relationship of a husband and wife.
And here we discover how abundantly our Creator loves us.
“You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.”
We don’t pursue Jesus just to glorify Him or to fulfill the ache we have for eternity. We pursue Jesus to reciprocate in any meager way we can His love for us. Seeking after Him is one way to accept and pour back out His love daily.
It’s difficult to ignore that kind of love!
What Now?
Pursue Him, friend. Don’t fall into the trap of living each day as the checkbox Christian. Pursue more of Jesus every single day and experience a relationship with your Savior that fills you with purpose and causes the angels to glorify their King.
Nothing comes as close to extraordinary as life lived in pursuit of Jesus.