After passionately teaching against the hypocrisy and wickedness of the religious leaders, who lead so many of God’s people away from the kingdom of God, Jesus pauses to express His sadness at the path of rejecting God that Jerusalem has chosen.
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. 38“Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! 39“For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’”
God has great love for His people and a desire to gather them together in His care. However, He will not force Himself on anyone. He grants each of us free will and the ability to accept and submit to God, or to reject Him and live according to our own path. The path of submission to God is filled with joy even in suffering and leads to eternity with God in Heaven. The path of our own desires, of our internal sin nature, the deceptions of Satan… that appears fun and exciting on the surface but can never fill the emptiness inside of each of us that results from being separated from God. This path leads to destruction and eternal separation from God in Hell.
Many will choose the wide path that leads to destruction, and only a few will choose the truly righteous path for it is narrow… but it leads to eternal life with God.
Which path will you choose?
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It’s really a good decision to have christ in our lives
Where is the scripture that the Holy
Spirit does not force himself on anyone.
If the Holy Spirit were to force Himself on someone to force them to obey God, we would not have free will and would be no better than robots. There is no love or relationship with a robot, it just does what it is told. God gives us free will to decide if we will submit to and follow Him or not.
I kind of agree with this statement. Free will is the option to choose, but when being brought to the spiritual side of eternity I have learned differently. The bible is interpreted in many different ways, yet it is taught that it is written not to be taken out of context. As far as the holy spirit goes, salvation is not merley a choice. For the flesh is weak and let us not forget that Jesus also states no one will snatch them out of my hand. If many would choose death over salvation then I would say there is something totally wrong with God granting free will. There are things that lay with the divine that even those that might think they know don’t. I honestly don’t want to sit around with a bunch of people who sit around patting themselves on their backs for debating back and forth over things that are clearly unknown and will always remain unknown. I just simply state from my experience. Let me just add that I did not write this because Im reminded that I’m not smart enough but look stupid enough.
I welcome the thoughtful discussion. Thanks for contributing.
The scriptures tell us that God must choose us before we choose Him and then we must choose Him. Not everyone is aligned on exactly how this works, but none the less that is the message from scripture. It is sad that so many choose to reject Him, but keep in mind scripture warns that the path is narrow that leads to salvation
Matthew 7:13“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
This same scripture actually includes direction to “enter through the narrow gate”. This further supports a choice is required by us. We are free to not like that, but none the less that is the truth of God’s word. We should trust in Him even when we don’t understand or agree and seek Him out further.
I will choose reality becuase there is no god. Grow up.
You identify yourself as “Anti theist”, but say there is no god. How can you be against something you say does not exist? Perhaps a more fundamental question… if there is no god, then you must believe that everything came from nothing? Is that a more rational view than God as creator? Which position requires more faith? I say it takes more faith (without evidence) to believe everything came from nothing than to believe in God as creator.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God.
Because of god you speak right now
My brother/sister, maybe you are confused with what you said, I think you are not aware that you do believe in God because reality is made by God. So when you choose reality, which is made by God, then you do believe in God. I pray that confusion will leave your mind and instead, the wisdom of God will remain in you.
You must be trying to be a liar. You see, those that don’t believe follow another group. If you see yourself as an atheist, even atheists acknowledge there’s a god without even saying it. Nice try to keep the debate interesting.
Amen! God is good
Hey thank you for this amazing message, but i would like to know the scriptures that are related to your title” God does not force Himself on anyone”.
Thanks for commenting. Starting with the scripture above, God is all powerful. If He wants to gather the children of Israel together, but does not because they are unwilling… by definition He is allowing them to reject Him rather than forcing them to accept Him. He sends prophets and messengers to draw Israel back to Him, but they do not accept His message and they hurt the messengers. The relationship is often compared to a wedding with Christ as the groom and the church (His people) as the bride. He seeks them, He courts them with messengers and the Holy Spirit, but ultimately He allows each of us to reject Him or accept Him. I think of all whom Yahweh, the prophets, Yeshua, His disciples reach out to and they all ultimately are approached with the message of Christ, of Salvation. There is no example where the LORD forced Joshua, or Moses, or the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 to follow Him. This is far different than, for example, the case of Pharaoh where God hardened his heart. God did not force Pharaoh to love and submit to Him, though He clearly influenced Pharaoh’s actions. Happy to continue this discussion further via email where there is more space to develop the Biblical references if you prefer. You can reach my email on the contact us page, http://hearingfromjesus.org/hearing-from-jesus-help-contact-us/.