He talked about Deuteronomy and the passage that is know by the Jews at the Shema. "The Lord our God is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all strength... For I Am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of Eygpt."

This got me thinking a little bit. Moses is giving a farewell address to Israel, and it always comes back to the fact that God brought them out of Egypt. Israel understood they were the next step in larger story. They always described God, Yahweh, in terms of what He had done. He was the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They constantly looked at Him in terms of His promises, plans, and actions.

How do we now look at God? I'd like to think that I understand where I fit. I do see the things God has done, showing His power and grace. But I need to live like I am the next chapter of the story. I need to be open to what God can do through me to continue His plans of redemption for our culture.

I see God working in what is called "Redemption History." He wants to restore mankind to the relationship he had in Eden. It's about restoring the relationship with God and man. I want to spend my life as that message.

I'm excited about what the next two days hold for me. I'm excited about seeing what God is doing. And like Bono says, I want to find what God is doing, and do that, because you know that is blessed.

Well, it starts in Genesis 1. There God created the earth. He made a lot of stuff. Importantly enough, he made man, Adam. God desired relationship. He had that with Adam, but He also understood that Adam could use some relationship with other earthly beings. So he let Adam name some animals. Well all the animals. Can you imagine the amount of time that would take. But in Genesis, it's two verses [2.19-20]. It makes me laugh cause the NIV says God parade the animals "to the man to see what He would name them." Ha! God probably knew already, but I can see Adam standing there going, "Dog, Cat, Snake, Antelope, Elephant, Giraffe, What the!, umm, Duckbilled platypus." Anyway. That's the beginning of the relationship, God pursuing a relationship with man.

Fast-forward, Exodus. God gets his people out of slavey in Egypt. He wants them to see that He is what it's all about. In fact, the people of Israel get this pursuit so much that they associate God throughout the whole OT as "the One who brought us out of Egypt." This is a pivotal moment in God's relationship with man.

But as we constantly see, Israel screws it up. They become to oppressors. They had been slaves in Egypt, now they had their own slaves. And God cannot deal with that. This is why Israel gets exiled to Babylon. The Babylonians were God's punishment for Israel's sin. Isaiah saw this coming, warned them, but also knew that God would again redeem His people.

Isaiah is the promises of God to Israel. His promise of redemption. His promise of a Messiah. God does not want his people to be enslaved. Israel began looking to these writings for hope. Hope that God had not abandoned them. And He hadn't.

To me, the cross is the ultimate showing of the divine pursuit. God had a problem. Sin separated His people from Him. Blood of a spotless lamb was the price of forgiveness. But single lambs here and there was not enough. There had to be one final offering to cover the sins of all. Something big, grand and unexplainable.

Jesus, God in flesh, was the only sacrifice that could cover up the sins of man, bring them back into relationship with God. The cross is where the divine pursuit concluded. His pursuit of man is the cross. We can get that forgiveness that we had searched for in so many other ways.