July 11, 2022 – Click here to listen
I attended church yesterday and the message was very interesting. I have been studying Mark and have been reading about Jesus being rejected in His hometown of Nazareth. The people simply did not believe that a “hometown boy” could teach and act in such powerful ways. It is believed that many in His hometown doubted His virgin birth and that only added fuel to the fire of unbelief. Only in this passage of Mark’s gospel is Jesus said to marvel and He marveled at the unbelief of His former neighbors in Nazareth.
He performed a few miracles there, but their unbelief did prompt Him to limit His ministry to a few sick people. Miracles took faith as a necessary component of being healed. Soon thereafter He sent His disciples out two by two to preach the gospel. He commanded them not to take food and other items with them and instead rely on God to provide their basic needs. He told them if they encountered someone who would not receive or hear them to “Shake off the dust under their feet”. This symbolized cursing them. Jesus was teaching them that whenever or wherever the gospel was preached both salvation and judgment follow depending upon people’s responses.
Which brings me to today’s perplexing subject. Does God give up on those who will not listen? Hmmm . . . Several times in the Bible the Apostle Paul talks about giving someone over to Satan. This refers to believers who have gone astray. I cannot find anywhere that God gives up on someone. Rather I think that the people who reject God are the ones giving up on God and not vice versa. Paul spoke of turning believers over to Satan when they did or spoke evil, but this was a condition of the flesh and not of the spirit which Satan has no authority over. Satan was allowed to torment them and even cause physical death, but the spirit remained with God. This is due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This does not give anyone a license to sin; indeed one might ask the legitimate question of whether or not someone who repeatedly commits heinous sins was ever truly a believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
So, my firm belief is that God never gives up on us. I base that in part on my own personal life. I’m glad He didn’t give up on me because it took years of convincing me to finally surrender to God and to follow Him and not the world. God never gave up on me and He never gives up on us. Our sins may drive us farther and farther away from Him—but even then, He still loves us and yearns for us to repent and turn to Him for the forgiveness and help we need.
God doesn’t give up on us but if we give up on Him and repeatedly turn our backs on Him and stubbornly refuse His offer of forgiveness, He will finally let us go. To me, this is not Him giving up on us. It is allowing free will to be exercised. The Bible warns, “A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed — without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1). Have you reached that point? Please don’t let that ever become true of you!
But this question concerns me because it suggests a misunderstanding of what God expects of us. Does God just want us to behave better? To put it another way, does God promise to reward us with eternal life if we’ll just try hard enough? Or does God want something else from us? The answer is “Yes” — God does want something else, and that “something” is for us to give our lives to Jesus Christ.
You see, we are separated from God because of our sins, and our greatest need is to be forgiven and cleansed of them. This is why Jesus Christ came into the world. All our sins were placed on Him, and He died for us. Now God offers us salvation as a free gift—a gift Christ paid for with His blood. If you have not already done so repent of your sins and ask Christ to come into your life today. If you sin again, ask God’s forgiveness and repent again.
If God does not give up on us, what does that tell us as mere humans on giving up on those among us who seem incorrigible? Be patient and don’t give up is what it tells me about my lost friends.
2 Peter 3:8
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.