GRACE ON THE CHASE

Unless you are really into old literature or poetry, you probably have not heard much about an English poet named Francis Thompson, born in 1859. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is his 182-line poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” first published in 1893. 

It is a remarkable piece of work and describes the pursuit of God. Not our pursuit of God, God’s pursuit of us. As the hound pursues the rabbit, and doesn’t give up, God pursues the sinner, and his divine grace never abandons the chase.

The Bible is not a book about man chasing God. On the contrary, it is the story of a God who is seeking us. It is the story of “grace on the chase.” Jesus came to “seek and save” the lost (Luke 19:10). It is through the careful seeking of God that we are saved. The only true and living God, the real God, is a seeker of men. Man is not a seeker of God until God makes him so. “There is no one who seeks after God” (Rom. 3:11). “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). He chose the apostles to whom he was speaking, but he also chose us. God made the first move and must get all the credit. 

We cannot find our way. We are like lost sheep and the one true shepherd has to leave the flock and come out into the wilderness to save us. This was the point of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:2-7). We would never find our way home without his seeking love.

Jesus is the one whom God sent into the world to find and bring home lost sinners. It was God’s initiative that has led to the salvation of lost humanity. Christ’s death was according to “the eternal purpose of God” (Eph. 3:11). Everything from beginning to end in the gospel story describes the love of God, a love that has come to save lost souls in the person of Jesus Christ.

Dewayne Dunaway