THIS IS TABLE ROCK FELLOWSHIP – PASTOR BILL MUIR (DEVOTIONALS)
Discovering the Relentless Pursuit of Grace
What comes to mind when you think about God? Is it an image of a distant judge, arms folded, waiting to catch you in a mistake? Or do you see a Father running toward you with open arms, a smile breaking across His face?
The answer to that question shapes everything about how you live.
A.W. Tozer once wrote that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Our image of God influences everything—how we pray, how we love, how we view ourselves, and how we relate to others. If we see Him as distant, we hide. If we see Him as angry, we perform. If we see Him as disappointed, we shrink back in shame.
But what if our image of God has been slightly distorted? What if the enemy’s greatest strategy isn’t to make us stop believing in God altogether, but simply to tweak our understanding of Him just enough to keep us at arm’s length from His love?
The Gospel in One Word: A Smile
After decades of theological study, wrestling with words like sanctification, justification, and propitiation, the essence of the gospel can be captured in a single, powerful image: God smiles when He looks at you.
To the degree that you don’t fully believe He smiles on you, beams about you, and delights in you—to that degree, you have not yet grasped the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This isn’t about denying sin or pretending we’re perfect. It’s about understanding that grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we can do to make Him love us less. As Tim Keller beautifully expressed it: “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
The Robe: God the Father Revealed
In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of a prodigal son who takes his inheritance, squanders it in reckless living, and ends up in a pig pen. When he finally comes to his senses and heads home, he’s still covered in the filth of his choices. He has no way to clean himself up. No shower. No change of clothes. Just shame and the stench of failure.
But look at verse 20: “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
Notice the words: still a long way off. The father doesn’t wait for the son to arrive at the porch. He doesn’t require the son to clean up first. He sees him from a distance because he’s been watching, waiting, longing for his return.
And what does the father do? He runs. In that culture, for a dignified man to lift his robe and expose his legs while running was considered shameful. But the father doesn’t care. His compassion—his deep feeling of his son’s pain—compels him to move toward his child with kindness and mercy.
Then comes the embrace. The father tackles his son to the ground, covering himself in the pig pen’s filth. He doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t maintain a safe distance. He kisses his son repeatedly, not a formal peck, but the kisses of overwhelming love.
This is who God is. He doesn’t wait for you to clean yourself up. He runs toward you in your mess, embraces you in your shame, and clothes you in His righteousness. You take on His holiness; He takes on your sin. That’s the exchange of grace.
The Tree: God with Sinners
Fast forward to Luke 19, where we meet Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector—essentially a traitor who skimmed money from his own people to fund his lavish lifestyle. Despised and lonely, he climbs a tree just to catch a glimpse of Jesus passing by.
Then Jesus stops. He looks up. And He says, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).
Notice what Jesus calls him: Zacchaeus. Not “sinner,” not “thief,” not “traitor.” His name. The one thing Zacchaeus probably never heard spoken with kindness.
Grace doesn’t call you by your worst moment. It calls you by your name.
In that moment, Jesus reduced His reputation to elevate redemption. He exchanged the goodwill of the crowd to spend an evening with a sinner. The critics had a field day: “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner!” (Luke 19:7).
But here’s the beautiful truth: Zacchaeus found salvation not in a temple, but in his own house. At his own table. Right where greed had lived. Jesus met him there.
We all have parts of ourselves we’re still hiding—darkness we’re afraid to expose, shame we keep in the shadows. But the gospel invites us to come out of hiding. You can only love others to the degree that you love yourself, and you can only love yourself to the degree that you’ve experienced being fully loved by God.
The Road: God with Saints
Even disciples get discouraged. In Luke 24, two followers of Jesus are walking away from Jerusalem on Resurrection Sunday, confused and heartbroken. They thought Jesus would rise, but they haven’t seen Him. Their theology is upside down. Their hearts are heavy.
And in their discouragement, Jesus Himself draws near and walks with them (Luke 24:15).
They don’t recognize Him at first. They’re walking with Jesus but missing His presence. Sound familiar?
Notice what Jesus does: He doesn’t lecture them. He walks. He listens. He asks questions. He enters their confusion with patience and a smile.
The Jesus of the gospel walks with you—not above you, not far from you, but with you. In the grocery store line. In the hospital waiting room. In your everyday, mundane moments. He’s present, not to critique you, but to be with the person He loves.
Later, when they break bread together and their eyes are opened, they remember: “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32).
When was the last time your heart burned? When was the last time Scripture came alive, not as words on a page to be studied, but as the voice of a God who smiles on you?
The God Who Pursues
Before you ever looked for God, He was looking for you. Before you prayed, He was calling. Before you repented, He was drawing. Before you returned, He was already on the road.
You are not chasing a reluctant God. You are being pursued by a relentless One.
Maybe it’s hard to believe because you know yourself too well—your weaknesses, your hiding, your repeated failures. But grace says He still comes. Not occasionally. Not reluctantly. Not with disgust. He comes with mercy in His eyes.
You may be hiding, but you’re not abandoned. You may be wandering, but you’re not forgotten. You may be ashamed, but you’re not unwanted.
The God who made you wants you. The God who knows you loves you. The God who sees you comes to you.
And today, maybe the most spiritual thing you can do is stop running, stop hiding, stop trying to make yourself worthy—and simply let yourself be found.
That is the gospel of grace. That is the God who smiles.
Bill Muir
OUR MISSION AS A CHURCH
“TO ENCOURAGE AND EQUIP EACH OTHER IN LOVE TO KNOW JESUS AND MAKE HIM KNOWN”
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