Have those near and dear to you repented; trusted Jesus for forgiveness and for His holiness attributed to them as theirs; and come to the obedience of the truth? No? Not yet? Then why, why, why are you not vehemently imploring the Father to draw them to Himself?
“For no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them to Me, and at the last day I will raise them up.” (John 6:44 NLT)
The modern church tends to focus so strongly on the power of individual free will that we sometimes willingly neglect glaring truths from God’s Word—the most important of which is that while we can accept or reject Christ, Jesus Himself said—as plainly as He could have—that no one can come to Him, unless the Father actually first draws them.
That is why it is so incredibly imperative that if you’re even thinking about God, you realize just that mere fact—your cognizance of Him—is evidence of His activity in your life; it is Him actively drawing you to Christ—to His Christ, the Christ, the One who saves us!
That’s because no one thinks about God, about spiritual issues, on their own. We really don’t. The spiritual realm is something we’re either unaware of or completely uninterested in—until God awakens us to it; until He begins drawing us to Himself:
“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised [understood].” (1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB1995)
Nothing of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ makes sense to someone who doesn’t have that kind of relationship. It seems complete foolishness, because God tells us to give everything up rather than lose Christ:
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? For the Son of Man [Jesus Christ; what He called Himself to emphasize He was born truly human—though He was God the Son from the beginning; with God and God Himself] will come with His angels in the glory of His Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.” (Matthew 16:24-27 NLT)
Some fixate on the last verse—on being judged for our deeds—but our deeds are an extension on our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Without Him—if we insist on rejecting Him and refuse to believe He can fully fulfill us as no sin can—no amount of good on our part will balance out or wash away our unholiness. If we trust in Him, not only does He clean and forgive us; He also leads us increasingly into responding in obedience to His will—resulting in a life pleasing to God.
Of course the giving up of your life to follow Jesus also trips people up—it tripped up the man identified in the Bible only as the rich young ruler. You see, when you have something—when you’ve already worked hard to gain wealth, status, position—you’re afraid to lose it. That’s why it sometimes seems those who have little in this world come more easily to Christ.
But Christ does not take your life away; He fulfills it in a way nothing else can. Sometimes it does feel like we have given everything up for His sake; the Apostle Paul said he gave everything up to gain Christ:
“…If anyone else has reason to put their confidence in physical advantages, I have even more: I was circumcised on the eighth day. I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews. With respect to observing the Law, I’m a Pharisee. With respect to devotion to the faith, I harassed the church. With respect to righteousness under the Law, I’m blameless. These things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ.
But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ and be found in him. In Christ I have a righteousness that is not my own and that does not come from the Law but rather from the faithfulness of Christ. It is the righteousness of God that is based on faith. The righteousness that I have comes from knowing Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the participation in his sufferings. It includes being conformed to his death so that I may perhaps reach the goal of the resurrection of the dead.” (Philippians 3:3-11 CEB)
Jesus Christ rearranges our lives or takes some aspects of our life away because it’s necessary; because it has become an idol—something we value and trust in more than in Him. The point is that we have to give up ownership of our lives to Him—we have to lose our lives for His sake. We have to relinquish everything, mentally and emotionally, to Him and trust that He will make the best use of it—we can’t say, “You can have everything except this.”
And when we relinquish it all, He does something beautiful with it. He doesn’t motivate every single one of us to sell off our possessions and go to a mission field; where we are, often becomes our mission field! We become the mechanic, the architect, the manager, the student animator, the sales lady whom others recognize as having spent time with Christ. And imagine the impact, when we really have been with Christ! The person who was formerly selfish or even abusive, who didn’t care, whose primary preoccupation was gaming or parties or any other identity but Christ—now sold out to the true Owner of his soul! Just like a Master Potter, He molds and shapes us into a conduit useful for Himself and His purposes, and the end result is something far more beautiful than anything we could have envisioned—much less accomplished—without His work in us!
But what if it’s not you, but someone you love dearly, who hasn’t come to the obedience of faith yet? Then, you pray!
You pray like their life depends on it—because it literally does. We are temporarily in these bodies, given a period of grace during which to come to our senses—to the Creator of our souls. As someone who is spiritual; who recognizes this body is only the container God gave us during our brief life here and which can be taken away at any time—we must implore our Heavenly Father with everything we have and are, to draw them to Himself before their time is up!
Why? Because what good will it have been if they reach the pinnacle of accomplishment apart from Christ—if they become a world famous architect, a radio personality, an Amazon Business Partner, the creator of an amazing animation program, a top notch airline mechanic with an amazing salary and benefits—but lose their eternal soul—if, during their time here they have not gained Christ in them, their only hope of God’s holy glory, without which they remain eternally damned in their unholiness?
It will be of absolutely no eternal good, because, “what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”
Dear Heavenly Father,
Draw them to Yourself through any means; let them be very quick learners that they not need to suffer or be painfully disciplined in order to come to their senses; turn them to repentance and to trusting in You, holy Jesus, for forgiveness, healing, and eternal life! Amen.
essentialdailyscriptures 