June 5, 2019 Martin (see HERE)
Is
the internet your “go to” source when it comes to learning about God? Good luck with that!
Romans
3 gives a troubling statement about human nature that surely can’t be
true: Paul wrote “…there is no one who
seeks God.”
Yet
we encounter spiritual seekers all the time, don’t we? I was talking with one such self-proclaimed seeker
at the end of my grocery errands, a man named Martin, who told me he thinks
about spirituality and the possibility of life after death often, and seeks to
know more about it through various sources on the internet.
So
how are we to understand Paul’s assertion, which is based on Psalm 14, that no
one seeks God? I meet people like Martin
all the time who have plenty of spiritual hunger and curiosity, and are willing
to talk about various theories and interesting things they’ve learned, most
often from internet sources.
I
think what is important to point out about this passage from Romans is that it
says “there is none who seek GOD” – that is, the one true God as presented in
the Bible. It doesn’t say people have no
spiritual interest, and I often find people who have a lot of spiritual
interest, but they seem to be seeking after anything BUT God. The idea of being able to choose one’s own
ideas about a god and spirituality from various sources, to build a god of your
own as it were, is very attractive to people.
We see this tendency throughout the Bible as new generations of people
are constantly attracted to idols rather than God Himself.
But
to seek after and accept God as He reveals Himself in the Bible, a God who defines
Himself rather than allowing us to define Him, is a different story. Martin and many like him reject the idea of
seeking after such a God outright, without giving the idea of reading the Bible
a second thought. Many have perceptions
of the Bible and the God it describes based on the negative opinions of others
rather than reading it for themselves, but I wonder if it doesn’t go beyond
these pre-conceived biases to a rejection of the very notion that one cannot
define their own god.
Occasionally
I do meet people who I believe are actively seeking the God of the Bible, even
though they may not have found Him through faith in Christ yet. But through questions and dialogue I usually
find out that it was God who sought them out first and who is actively drawing
them to Himself, perhaps through the prayers of a loved one, the outreach of a
friend or church ministry, or the influence of some sort of supernatural
experience.
In
John 6:44, Jesus explains that “No one can come to me unless the Father who
sent me draws them”. Why can’t we come
to God on our own, without God’s help?
Ephesians 2:1 tells us “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
and sins.” The dead can’t bring
themselves to life. They can’t even move
in that direction. This is why Jesus
tells us that we need to be “born again” spiritually. No one chooses when and where to be born,
just as the dead can’t choose to come to life.
It is a work of God, beyond our understanding.
Yet
He often chooses to work through His church, through our prayers, our acts of kindness
and our faithful witness, to orchestrate events with the power of his Spirit in
such a way as to draw people to Himself and to bring the spiritually dead to
life. I didn’t get to talk very long
with Martin there in the grocery store, but I hope and pray I was able to be at
least a small part of God’s work in drawing Martin to Himself.
Martin,
if you read this, thank you for your kindness in allowing me to record our
conversation and I do hope you will begin to read the Bible for yourself –
especially the four Gospels at the start of the New Testament - and discover
how you can relate to God as your heavenly Father through faith in Jesus.
Our conversation can be seen HERE
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