Pursuing More of Jesus Part 1

Every day presents a fresh opportunity to pursue a closer relationship with Jesus –and the more you have Jesus in your life, the better your life will be. So, don’t settle for just a few occasional encounters with Jesus in some parts of your life. Keep pursuing more of Jesus until your whole life is saturated with His power.

I’ve come across an excerpt from a book by Anne Graham Lotz called Pursuing More of Jesus and will post thirteen salient points over the next three weeks in my life testimony post.

Here are the first four:

Go for the maximum, not the minimum:
Choose to go after more than just the bare minimum God has to offer you. Make your faith about more than merely trying escape hell and get your ticket punched to heaven. Invite God to completely transform you: to bend your will, awaken your conscience, break your heart, and transform your mind and to help you to overcome your prejudices. Ask for His spirit to soar in your spirit, and form you into His glorious image.

Pursue more of His voice in your ear:
Out of the many voices you hear speaking to you each day: through other people, circumstances, etc, you need to learn how to discern what’s truly God’s Voice and what’s not. Keep in mind that any message from God is biblical (straight from God’s Word); personal (it pertains to your life) and powerful (resulting in lives of changed for the better; lives of people who have salvation) Learn how to recognize God’s voice by getting to know the Bible well. Read it, study it [prayerfully], understand it, apply it and live by it. Then trust God’s guidance when making decisions.

Pursue more of His tears on your face:
Jesus cares and understands when you’re crying tears of pain. Remember how He suffered on the cross. See your own sufferings as opportunities to draw closer to Jesus. No matter what your are going through – the loss of a job, a friend’s betrayal, a health crisis, a spouse’s unfaithfulness, a child’s rebellion – Jesus is hurting along with you and will meet you and comfort you with His presence in the middle of your suffering.

Pursue more of His praise on your lips:
It’s easy to praise Jesus when your life is going well, but Jesus is worthy of praise even when problems and pressures darken your circumstances. Make the deliberate, conscious choice to praise Jesus every day, no matter what. Make the decision to honour Jesus and to learn to walk by reliable faith rather than by shifting feelings. Praise Jesus for who He is by frequently thinking of one of His wonderful attributes and thanking Him for it. Praise Jesus for what He has done by thanking Him for specific blessings in your life of a regular basis. Real praise is affirming your faith even in the midst of desperation when you choose to cling to Jesus alone.