Press where it hurts

When the Holy Spirit wants to bring a soul to Christ, he supports the place where the sinner resists. This resistance may be in the refusal to obey, to accept a Bible doctrine or truth. This may concern the deity of Jesus, or another crucial point such as the trinity. This will often concern particular sins that prevent them from fully engaging God. It may be the act of obeying the law, such as paying taxes and stopping traffic. Or restoring an object or stolen money, or forgiving someone.

It is up to the sinner to surrender to God, and not to deliver Jesus into a pizza box. The sinner must give himself up completely, he and his sin. It may be that the sinner is like the rich young man whose love for money prevented him from being saved. Jesus let him go all sad. Yes, he let him go back in this condition (but he prayed for him afterwards, that's for sure !).

After convicting the youngster of the truth of sin, who thought he was so perfect, Jesus did not run after him to say : "Oh, but it's not so bad, you're doing so well to all the other commandments. I can see that you are making great efforts !". No. He let him go again because he did not want to prevent the work of the Holy Spirit in his consciousness.

Resilient sinners often have something that prevents them from coming to the Lord until they yield completely. Christians have developed methods of evangelization whose purpose is not to offend sinners. Besides, they would never dare call them sinners, they prefer to call them friends. The definition of a friend according to Jesus is someone who obeys his commandments (John 15:14). Some churches will even call them "brothers" while they are sons of Satan. Jesus declared that his brothers, his sisters and his mother, were those who fulfilled the will of God (Mark 3:33).

Jeremy Sourdril