Human Nature

As I have gotten closer to God and learned more about God and His truth, I couldn’t help but learn about myself and human nature at the same time. What I have realized is; everyone believes what they want to believe. Whether a person calls themselves a Christian or not, they will only believe what they want to believe. If a person wants to stay in the condition they are currently in and wants to justify their current condition, then they will only believe in ideas and theories that go along with their current condition. But if a person is not happy with their current condition and believes that there is hope and a remedy for change, it is then that they will search out and believe in something new.

People restrict their belief and faith in God for many reasons. The biggest restriction to believing in God’s truth is that people don’t want to change. Some other reasons people will not accept God’s truths are concerns over their loved ones. A person’s loved ones usually include sons, daughters, parents, other family members, and usually certain friends. For the ones that have passed away, people want to believe their loved ones are in heaven even though they were not totally committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. They realize that the ones passed on were not living a Christ like life, but they saw some good in them, so they want to believe that God is gracious enough to let them into heaven. They are believing a lie, but this lie comforts them so they refuse to believe in God’s truth which states the opposite. Parents want to believe that their children are going to heaven, even though their children are living for worldly things and selfish gratification. To believe this lie gives a parent comfort, but it is still not God’s truth. It is only believing and living God’s truth that will bring a person into God’s eternity. We also want to believe that our friends will go to heaven because we see some good in them. It is not the man with some good in him that will enter heaven; it is the man that has all the goodness of Christ in his heart that will enter heaven. A man that lives on the street and is starving for food will find some good in a garbage can, but God does not allow garbage in His heaven.

Recently I experienced a “Christian” man with these worldly beliefs. He has been going to a holiness church for many years and I know the pastor there does not preach the lie this man believes. How could this man sit in the church pews for so many years and believe the opposite of what the pastor there is preaching. It is because this man (like most people) only will hear and accept what he wants to believe. His ears and mind have been closed to God’s truth. I have knowledge of this man’s beliefs because of the following conversation this man and I had. He told me that his friends he has worked with for many years are not Christians, but in his opinion, they live mostly by Christian values. He said he saw some goodness in these friends and believes that they would not be rejected by God, but would be allowed to go into heaven when they die. This man is living a lie, but he believes what he wants to believe.

What do you want to believe? Do you want to believe that God is all powerful and can change you into a pure and blameless person, or do you want to believe that God will accept you as His son (as is) and that you will inherit eternal life with Him, even though you still desire some of the sinful trash in your life. I have found that you can almost always find some goodness in a person, but when a person’s soul gets on one side of the scales and Christ get on the other side of the scales, how do you think a person can measure up to Christ. The only way we can have the scales balance against Christ’s love is if we have Christ also in us.

With God’s love,
Mike