2 Reasons People Reject Christ
When you talk to people about Christianity, they often offer supposed intellectual/rational reasons for their decision not to believe on Christ.
The Apostle Paul informs us that we reject Christ because of willful suppression of the truth (Romans 1:18).
Thus, our stated reasons are not our actual heart reasons.
Based upon what Paul says in Romans 1:18-25 and in Philippians 2:1-11, I believe people reject Christianity for two primary reasons.
1. Self-Sufficiency/Pride
Christianity alone calls on us to be fully dependent on God by grace apart from anything we can do.
God’s call on us to accept Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf is a knife in the heart of our human prideful/arrogant self-sufficiency.
We refuse to humbly depend.
2. Self-Centered/Selfishness
We reject the claims of Christ because Christ calls on us to sacrifice self for others (Philippians 2:1-11). We reject Christ because He calls us to other-centered living.
His call on us to love others sacrificially is a knife in the heart of our human selfishness.
We refuse to sacrificially love.
In Summary
At their core, decisions about Christianity are less about rational/reasonable objections and more about avoiding humble dependence upon God and about avoiding other-centered sacrificial love.
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What are the core heart reasons that people reject Christ?
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fear. perhaps we fear what Christ would ask us to do, like giving up our desires for His purposes and not our own.
Great thoughts, Bob.
There is also a practical reason people reject Christ: they are abused or neglected in his name. When parents use the Bible and church as a club to beat their kids into submission and fail to make home a safe place, when the parents use the kids for the parents’ own physical or emotional gratification instead of ministering to the emotional needs of the kids, you end up with kids who feel they have to reject God, the Bible, and church in order to be healthy human beings. On their way out the door, some of these kids reach out to the pastoral staff of churches which fail to understand and end up re-victimizing these victims of spiritual abuse all over again, reinforcing in the mind of the kids that home and church are both unsafe places – places where the one with the power gets to do what he/she wants at the expense of those who are weak.
I know far too many people who had a crisis of life and a crisis of faith, where their parents were against them and the church either actively or passively took the parents’ side. Such people go somewhere for help. They try the church and the church fails, so they go elsewhere. The person with authority in your life is the person who offers you hope and help. And when the representatives of Christ fail to bring hope and help, they lose the opportunity to speak into the life. The person will go elsewhere and will believe that when the rubber hits the road, the church won’t be there, by extension, Christ won’t be there. There are many single moms who have had the same sort of experience.
None of this squares with Matthew 25, or the Good Samaritan, or the Good Shepherd, or the instructions in James about giving help to the needy, but I fear this scenario is being played out more commonly than I used to think. To recap all this in one sentence: you are drawn to the one who offers hope and help when the chips are down; if representatives of Christ failed or even attacked you when the chips were down, you feel pushed away from Christ and you are likely to believe he cannot be trusted, that he himself abandoned you in your hour of need. On the positive side, when representatives of Christ offer hope and help when a person is overwhelmed by practical needs, I believe a person is likely to be drawn toward the Lord.
Self-Sufficiency and self-centeredness both are centered on self. In order to put God on the throne, self must step down. It is a question about whether I choose to believe in someone other than self, or whether I am willing to submit to someone other than self. In other words, who is on the throne of my life. If I’m on the throne, I don’t have to humble myself to another or obey/serve/love another unless I choose. I’m Lord. As a Christian, I must decrease so that Christ might increase. Yes, it is a matter of self-sufficiency and self-centeredness, but I think it goes beyond that. It’s a matter of Self vs Jesus and who will be king in my life.
I agree with Matthew. Many turn from God because He has been misrepresented to them. Others turn from God because their parents dragged them to church, but didn’t model Christianity in their own lives. As children watch hypocritical parents and don’t see their lives impacted by following Jesus, they question the value of becoming a Christian. If God doesn’t offer more than they witnessed in their family, they don’t want Him in their lives. In both cases, the Jesus the children were introduced to is not someone they are willing to yield the throne to. It is understandable that they cling to the throne in order to maintain control of their lives.
It is also a wake-up call to parents to maintain a submitted, living, and transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. Whether we like it or not, we represent the love, power, and life of God to our children. If they can’t see a living, loving God in us, why should they want to follow Him?
1. Be their own Savior (pride)
2. Be their own Lord (selfishness)
Clearly, the issue is the breaking of the First Commandment.
Fulfilling the two commandments Jesus laid out (love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself) would be the antidote of the poison of religiosity…and draw the lost into the arms of Jesus.
John 3:20: “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” Unbelievers do not just love their sin; they also hate Jesus! They hate the One who out of love offered Himself on the cross so that every sinner might not perish but have eternal life simply by believing in Him! They hate Him because He exposes their evil deeds.
I would say that most people believe that they are basically good and that any evil they have done will be forgiven. I think people believe that God is going to grade on a curve when it comes time for Judgment Day. That is, God will compare them with others, and some of the others are WAY WORSE than they are. Couple this with their belief that God is fair, and won’t turn good intentions and effort away.
However, there is a fallacy here that God is just and must punish sin in any form! (Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death.”) Someone has to pay for my sin, either me or a Substitute which God allows/allowed. That is Jesus, my Substitute! (Romans 5:8 says that God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us).
But we must accept this gift of payment for our sins. Otherwise, it will do us no good. Repent and believe the Good News! That’s what Jesus said.