Pursued Before You Performed: The Heart of the Gospel

You Were Loved Before You Were Lovable

One of the most revolutionary truths of Christianity is this: God pursued you before you ever thought about pursuing Him. Your faith journey didn’t begin with your decision—it began with His desire. This changes everything about how we understand salvation, relationship with God, and our mission as believers.

Relationship, Not Religion

At Lakeview Christian Church of Portage Lakes, we’re passionate about being the change as Jesus has changed us. But that change doesn’t start with religious duty or moral improvement. It starts with understanding a profound truth: Jesus desired you before you ever desired Him.

When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, it wasn’t because He was lonely or needed something. He created humanity for relationship. From the very beginning, God’s heart has been to draw near to His people, to walk with them, to know them and be known by them.

Sin broke that fellowship, creating a chasm between holy God and fallen humanity. But here’s where the gospel becomes truly good news: God didn’t wait for us to fix ourselves, clean up our lives, or become worthy of His attention. He moved toward us while we were still running from Him.

Grace Precedes Obedience

Romans 5:8 captures this beautifully: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Not after we got our act together. Not when we finally deserved it. While we were still sinners—still rebellious, still broken, still lost—Christ died for us.

This is the road to redemption: God moves toward us before we move toward Him. Grace comes before obedience. Love initiates salvation. You are pursued before you perform.

This truth should transform how we approach our faith. We don’t serve God to earn His love—we already have it. We don’t obey to gain His approval—we’re already approved through Christ. We don’t perform to be pursued—we’ve already been found.

The Substitute We Needed

But for this relationship to be restored, something had to happen. According to the old law, a lamb had to die. Blood had to be spilled for freedom to occur. Redemption requires a substitute.

Jesus became that substitute. He took our place, bore our punishment, paid our debt. When He broke bread in the upper room and said, “This is my body, given for you” (Luke 22:19), He was declaring His willingness to suffer in our place.

This is love in action—the very heart of our Serve commitment at Lakeview Christian Church. We serve not to earn God’s favor but because we’ve already received it. We give because He gave first. We love because He loved us when we were utterly unlovable.

Living Out “Just 3”

Understanding that we’re pursued before we perform should impact how we live out our mission of “Just 3”:

Study to love and know God: We study Scripture not to impress God but to know the One who already delights in us. Every page reveals more of His pursuing heart.

Share to know and love others: We share the gospel because we’ve experienced this pursuing love and want others to know it too. We’re not salespeople—we’re witnesses to amazing grace.

Serve as love in action: We serve from gratitude, not guilt. Our actions flow from the overflow of being loved, not from the pressure to earn love.

The Invitation

If you’ve been trying to earn God’s love through performance, you can stop. You’re already loved. If you’ve been running from God, thinking you need to clean up first, you can turn around. He’s already pursuing you.

At Lakeview Christian Church of Portage Lakes, we’re a community of people who’ve discovered this truth: we’re pursued before we perform. And it changes everything.