Jesus gently urges your heart to respond to Him. We choose to accept that urging and walk toward Him with our hearts and lives, or we can ignore it, push it away or keep our lives so full and busy that we can altogether miss it or avoid it.
So why do people ignore it? Why do they stay so busy so as not to hear their creator? Yet deep within every one of us, we feel this eternal urging of "there's got to be more".
What does God say about these objections
1. I don't want to stop doing the things I'm doing.
You are accepted by God because of His grace and NEVER because of your works. Even if your life is a mess, He can take your mess and make it into something beautiful. Come as you are to Jesus. Sometimes people think they have to get in their life in order before coming to Jesus.
Do you clean yourself before you shower? Well, I know I don't... But, when you come to God He, and not you, is your shower. When you are dirty he cleanses you and washes you.
Go to Jesus with all your mess, all your addictions, all your weaknesses and all your failures. God loves you just as you are. He also loves you too much to let you stay the same.
While Jesus was dying on the cross, there was also two criminals being hung alongside him.
One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: "Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!"
But the other one made him shut up: "Have you no fear of God? You're getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not himâ€"he did nothing to deserve this."
Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:39-43)
He didn't have to get cleaned up. He admitted he deserved what he was getting, exercised some knowledge of, and need for, Jesus and asked to be with Him.
Jesus always elevated human need above holy ritual. This part I love about Jesus. He wasn't into the religious mumbo jumbo if it meant that people's needs were not met. In Jewish law you weren't allowed to work on the sabbath, but Jesus healed people and helped people on the sabbath. For that, they did not look very kindly upon him. The religious people were the ones who crucified Jesus.
Jesus had not been to their theological schools. He did not have the endorsement of the religious organisation. He did not play by their rules. His authority was not a religious authority; it was a charismatic authority that resulted from a life led and absorbed in God's Spirit.
We come as we are in order to discover who we are and what we were meant to be.
2. I am strong enough without a god. Only weak people lean on religious stuff.
We think we are 'strong' without God. For a while in my life, I thought I didn't need him either. Well, I kind of made a mess of it with my so-called 'strength'. God made something out of it though, and I learnt a lot about me and about Him. For me, things started to get tough, and guess what? My strength simply wasn't enough. And what I was doing to myself was less than 'strong'. My own pride blinded me from my faults and my need for God. What good is our strength and confidence in ourselves if someday we meet God face to face? Come to God with your questions and doubts. Slowly (but sometimes quickly) He answers them.
3. If God was there He would do something about the state of the world.
Why does He wait when we so desperately are begging Him to "do something?" Why? Because God is omniscient. He knows everything. He has His plans all drawn up and we cannot grasp His ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
That dark day on Calvary's hill, nobody knew God's plan. It looked very dark. Jesus was being tortured and mocked. How did that look for His followers of the time? Pretty grim? God was fulfilling the plan that had been set in motion before the foundation of the earth. He was redeeming mankind. He was making a way for us to regain our fellowship with Him. He was opening Heaven's doors.
But why war, why tragedies, why suffering? Because He is fulfilling the plan that was set in motion for you and me before the foundation of the world. God has a plan for my life as surely as He had a plan for Jesus. So, when we cry out to Him.......listen. He is probably telling you your part in His plan. How he wants YOU to respond.
God loves you
Sometimes we don't feel love from people in our own world. Or we find it hard to love. Love is so mis-used in today's society. The ultimate love, the greatest love, comes from God to you. He loves you.
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand." (John 10:27)
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
Love each other
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)
Every person is valued
"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" (Matthew 6:26)
"But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Therefore do not fear." (Matthew 10:29-31)
Bring your objections to God this Easter. He is gentle, He is kind, He is loving.
Trust Him.
Belinda Croft is married to Russell and she has a son BJ, 11 years. She has a heart and passion for God, writing, creativity, mission and social justice.
Belinda's archive of articles can be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/belinda-croft.html
