The Hard Part By Alan Wimbish of Child Evangelism Fellowship in North Carolina. We miss Alan at CEF New Mexico! Thank you for another awesome post Brother!
The hardest part to becoming a follower of Jesus is recognizing the need for Him in the first place. In my experience as a missionary, mainly to children, I have noticed some interesting things. The hardness of the human heart always astounds me. When I was lost; before I knew Jesus, I had no desire for God or the things of God. This is confirmed in the Bible in Romans 3:11, “…no one seeks for God.” As a believer, I see this to be true in my life before I came to know Christ. I have to be reminded of this every day. I need Jesus every day. It seems that the older a person gets, the harder their heart gets toward the things of God.
As a missionary to children, I’ve seen that the heart is more tender toward the things of God the younger a person is. It’s pretty simple. A person can’t be rescued if they don’t at first realize they are lost. They must see their lost-ness before they can see a need to be saved. This is the hard part. In the latter part of John chapter six, Jesus is sharing with the crowd that he is the bread of life. He invites people to come and take of his gracious offer of eternal life. After this, the people look at each other and talk among themselves and say, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Many of these ‘disciples’ turn away and no longer follow Jesus. They didn’t see their need for life because they refused to see the fact that they were spiritually dead, i.e lost in their sin. Later on in John six, in verse sixty-five, Jesus says, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (NLT). I’m not arguing for or against pre-destination, all I’m saying is that the Father has to “draw” a person to himself before that person can come to faith in Christ. I don’t understand the complexities of this, but I am thankful that he drew me to himself when I was on the cusp of my teenage years. There was nothing in me to draw me to himself, it was only the grace of God. I’m not saying that God is not calling people to himself who refuse to come to Jesus by faith, He may very well be calling them, but for some reason, “…this is a hard saying, who can understand it?” Most people will wake up today and have no thought of God. On the other hand, there are those whom God is calling to himself and they will have a thought about things of eternity. Never stop praying for your loved ones and friends who are lost. Pray that God will do the hard part and show them their lost-ness so that they can come to Jesus and be found by his grace!
God Bless you all, Alan Wimbish
