Is it possible we tend to send the wrong message, at times in large doses? I think the believing world has presented itself way more complex and rare than necessary.
Take a look around and tell me if you don’t see the big religious organizations built on limited availability? Or how they have come to weaponize the Lord’s instruction of “we have the power to “bind or loose””. The believing world owes an enormous apology to those who struggle, not just the Atheist. The Lord never intended for his glorious Church to present the saving gospel of Christ as a closed society. He is willing that “all come to repentance”.
Those who have stumbled on the bind and loose precept to build their stations, seldom couple it with the Lord’s other words on forgivness “if you don’t forgive, neither will you be forgiven”.
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So, about this matter of ease of belief, I have bad news for the Atheist, they will have to work much harder to avoid the Lord’s provision on belief, it is far easier than first understood.
Too often, we and the Atheist alike are all too ready to admit to ourselves to believe would take much more than can be reasoned, as though it is a lost cause. Well I don’t buy this sort of minimizing God’s provisions to simply believe. I think we need to return to enlarging the word for folks and present the love of God readily to believe in.
Of all those who lack the necessary “belief”, the oft’ used “can’t force them” or “too hard to grasp” I just cannot support. In fact, I think the condition of lack of belief is the worst thing befallen to all those deficient of belief. I think it is more lack-to-ease belief than it is lack-to-resist belief. You recall,
"Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." (Mark 10:15)
"As a little child - With the temper and spirit of a child - teachable, mild, humble, and free from prejudice and obstinacy." - Barnes
Well that may be easier said than done some Atheist might say. I say not so. I think v15 was quite clear as in quite obtainable and generous. Atheists are convinced having such simple faith to believe is okay for some people, just not them; they don’t have even the beginnings of child-like faith.
Permit let’s say, you are now set to meet up with another Atheist friend just down the road, and the two of you will proceed to something you’ve been planning in advance. And now that it is here it is only going to be nearby for a short time, but you’re both ready. But wait, word is there is trouble that makes getting there nearly impossible. But you hear some have figured out how and decided the both of you will not be deterred.
This same simple child-like faith I believe God in His wisdom put in place for processing straights that prevents inconceivable possibilities for some people, aka, God’s mercy. It seems a completely new belief would have to undo all that generous mercy of belief to escape it.
If I tried to fashion myself into the Atheist, I would have to object to that generous supply, I would have to leave it all behind and repent from my own understanding. I would have to count it as rubbish, sworn to avoid and trampled out of existence. In effort to disperse this availability, if at all possible I am not to be pestered away with overhaul, let another have the abundance, I am in sufficiency. I am happy to make it an at will endurance of adult posture. But it will not work.
The denial isn’t finished. Barring myself, I will now be denied the connecting commonwealth of faith and a different grind to run by. A run which is a higher design and doesn’t have a proud promotion, but devoted, humble and a daily audacity to think on Him and talk to Him, the unseen who knows when, and how many and how to bless each.
Build the old, or else build the new, we count it all as ours, and then some count it all as loss for gaining Christ, and still some make it all the way to lukewarm which is the worst of all conditions, but you don’t have to, the fight is over, proceed to believe.
God bless!
