The Nuance of Biblical Striving
We Strive to Know God, but We Do Not Strive for Salvation
Hey! Have you ever wondered why some people never seem to arrive at God even when they try to?
Some spend their lives trying to be saved. Others do not think they need saving at all.
I have a theory.
It has something to do with the direction of their striving.
Before I expound on that, let me just say that one of the hardest lessons to learn, not only in thought but in lived experience, is grace.
Many are good at it in theory but struggle with it in practice. Why?
Because human beings are conditioned to strive. We learn from an early age that effort produces reward, that achievement earns recognition, and that value is often measured by what we accomplish. We are taught to pursue, to build, to prove, and to earn.
Because of this, grace can almost sound offensive. (As in: “Are you saying salvation is really by grace?” “If it is valuable, surely I must work for it.”)
BUT the gospel tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works, not by merit, not by anything we can place before God as payment or qualification. And for a heart accustomed to earning everything, that message can feel a little too unsettling. It leaves no room for boasting, no room for the self to take center stage. It dismantles every claim of self-achievement. It tells us that the most important gift we could ever receive cannot be earned.
Yet Scripture also speaks frequently about seeking God.
We are told to seek the Lord while He may be found. To seek first the kingdom of God. To seek and keep seeking. To pursue. To knock. To ask.
At first glance, this seems like a contradiction.
If salvation is by grace and not by striving, why does Scripture repeatedly call us to seek?
The answer lies in understanding what our striving is directed toward.
A concordance study of the biblical words translated as seek reveals a consistent pattern. The Hebrew words darash and baqash, along with the Greek word zēteō, carry the sense of pursuing, searching diligently, inquiring, desiring earnestly, and directing oneself toward something with intention. The language is active rather than passive.
Seeking, in the biblical sense, is not a casual interest; it is a pursuit.
Put simply, it is an active striving.
This is why God says:
“You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”
— Jeremiah 29:13
By the way, notice what God invites.
He invites pursuit.
God conceals, yet God also invites.
“The glory of God is to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings is to search it out” (Proverbs 25:2).
Throughout Scripture, God reveals Himself to those who seek Him. Not because seeking earns His favor, but because seeking is the posture through which we come to know Him.
This is where many people confuse two very different pursuits.
They strive for salvation instead of striving to know God.
And that is where many go wrong.
They wonder why they never seem to arrive at God while spending all their energy trying to earn what can only be received.
I tell you, one pursuit cannot succeed; the other is repeatedly encouraged by Scripture.
Salvation is never presented as a prize for the diligent. It is a gift received by faith. No amount of effort can purchase it. No amount of discipline can deserve it. No amount of striving can place God in our debt.
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Yet knowing God is different.
There is effort involved in prayer. Effort involved in walking out our faith. Effort involved in studying Scripture. Effort involved in turning our hearts toward Him again and again, agreeing with Him again and again.
There is a sacred pursuit that belongs to the life of faith.
Now you see, the distinction is crucial.
The problem is not striving itself.
The problem is where that striving is directed.
Many people direct their striving toward salvation, as though acceptance before God can be secured through enough effort, discipline, sacrifice, knowledge, or obedience. They treat salvation as a destination reached by climbing.
But salvation is not reached by climbing.
It is received by grace.
The striving that Scripture commends is not striving to be saved.
It is striving to know the One who saves.
The One who loved us first.
The One who thought of us before we ever thought of Him.
The One who prepared good works beforehand that we should walk in them.
The One whose purposes for us existed long before we ever sought Him.
We do not seek God in order to make Him save us.
We seek God because He is worth knowing for all that He is.
And in knowing Him, we discover the salvation we so desperately need, yet could never earn, and that He freely gives.
The irony is that many spend their lives striving for what can only be received, while neglecting the One who is meant to be sought.
The gospel reverses our instincts.
It tells us to stop striving for acceptance and begin seeking the One who accepts us in Christ.
To stop trying to earn what God gives freely.
To stop laboring for a verdict already secured by grace.
The Christian life is not the absence of striving; it is the redemption of striving.
The striving remains, but its direction changes.
No longer striving to be saved.
No longer striving to be worthy.
No longer striving to earn God’s love.
Instead, striving to know Him.
This is the paradox of grace:
We stop striving for what cannot be earned, so that we may wholeheartedly seek the One who freely gives it.
For salvation is not found at the end of our striving.
It is found in the God whom we seek.
And the more deeply we know Him, the more clearly we discover that what striving could never obtain was freely given in Him all along! (wink)
