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That is a question that we often hear. "How could someone not believe in God? How could someone not love to go to church? I don't understand people like that."
That last statement was a key statement. Too often, we don't "understand people like that". Unfortunately, this is the very reason we have a difficult time getting through to them. We haven't taken the time to understand them. We haven't taken the time to find out why they object to our Christianity. Probably, we have never asked them that question.
People aren't Christians for a myriad of reasons. To make it easier to remember, most of their reasons fall into four categories. These four categories are:
Reasons of the Intellect
Intellectual objections to Christianity. These may include such objections as, "There is no absolute truth, whatever you believe to be true, is true for you", "Science has proven the Bible is false", "There is no God", "The Bible is not God's Word", etc..
Reasons of the Climate
What is the climate of opinion regarding Christianity? Christians are portrayed in the media as hate-mongers, exclusionary, prejudiced, arrogant, close-minded, and completely out of touch with reality. In a day of perception being reality, of image being everything, many have bought into this depiction without even investigating for themselves.
Reasons of the Heart
They may simply not want to leave their friends or give up a particular habit that they love. They may feel overwhelming shame and unfit to come to God. They may have addictions that they think they must give up before they can approach a holy God.
Reasons of the Memory
They tried church, got hurt, and will not go back. They were cheated in business by a Christian. The church they had attended angrily split over something petty. They thought they'd found a true family, just to be stabbed in the back. They didn't realize that Christians were human and made mistakes or that the church contains tares and wheat. They thought once they became a Christian, all their troubles were over and everything would be perfect. They became disillusioned and left the church. To make matters worse, no one noticed they left and they received no call of concern, making them feel that, all the while, they were unimportant. They have bad memories of their experience with Christianity.
Whatever their reason, we must be willing to concern ourselves with them. We need to ask them what their reason is for not accepting Christianity. We need to take time to think about how we can address these reasons. We need to not be afraid to approach them. Take them seriously. Their objections are real and, most of the time, legitimate. God desperately wants to reach them and we are all He has to use.
Are you willing to be used of God?
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