Pursue.

Everything we pursue in life will fail us, except for God.   ~~~ What would you say is one of your life’s greatest pursuits? If we don’t take time to think about this, to plan our lives around pursuits, then what usually happens is that life just kind of drifts. We drift in our jobs, with no real aim or purpose. We drift in our relationships. We drift from one week to the next, one season to the next, with no real advancement, growth, or change in our lives. So I think it is important to have goals, bucket lists, and pursuits. They give us something for which to wake up. They keep us going. Do you have a pursuit? And if you do, what are you doing to reach it? Are you planning, studying, saving, sacrificing,? What are you doing to actually pursue? “Pursue” is an action word, it’s movement, it’s energy being exerted. And does God give us any direction in His word as to what are worthy pursuits, what are primary and essential pursuits? Part of the Christmas story, one little scene in it, shows us what is worthy of pursuing, or rather, who is worthy of pursuing. Matthew 2:1-3 “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Matthew is the only one to record for us this story of the magi. Matthew spends very little ink on the actual birth narrative of Jesus Christ, but he spends considerable amount of ink and paper on the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, one event being the wise men coming to the home of the Christ child. When we read this section of scripture we notice that geography comes up quite a bit, in particular, the city of Bethlehem. We see that this city is mentioned in verse 1,2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16. So the place is an important element of the message that Matthew is trying to communicate. The primary reason Matthew keeps bringing up the place of Jesus’ birth is to show his readers, mainly Jewish readers who were familiar with the Hebrew scriptures and prophecies, that the place of His birth fulfilled scripture. In fact, the whole of Matthew’s gospel aims to show how Jesus fulfills ancient Hebrew prophecy. Matthew quotes from the OT more than any other NT author. In this gospel he says 13 time “this took place to fulfill the scripture,” all of them but one refer directly to Jesus. What is the likelihood that all of these prophecies would be fulfilled by one man? It is not a big deal that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But to be born in Bethlehem at a time when there was no rightful Jewish king, to be taken to Egypt, to be raised in Nazareth, to heal diseases, to enter Jerusalem on a donkey proclaiming his Kingship, to be betrayed, to be crucified, and many others, now that is amazing. The chances, the probability of those things being fulfilled in one man, are astronomical. So was it just chance, coincidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? Absolutely not. God stacked the odds so much against himself so that when He did make everything happen according to scripture, we couldn’t help but see that God is a faithful God who always keeps His promises, no matter what the circumstances may look like, and that knowing His Son is worth the pursuit. Everything you pursue in this life will, at some point in time, fail you. Whether it is a spouse, a bank account, a child, a position. It will not be able to fulfill all of its promises. Only God can do that. So why wouldn’t you pursue Him?