THE BENEFITS OF REJECTING JESUS

The Benefits of Rejecting Jesus

No Rules

            Even just a quick study of the Bible shows that being a follower of Jesus requires obedience. For example, the whole LOVE thing, the whole “Love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU” issue. If you read His words and take them to heart, then it is going to require energy and power that human beings do not possess.  THE LOVE THING..is….quite, frankly, a huge challenge to anyone who would want to embrace Jesus as the Savior of the World.  When you reject Him, you don’t have to be bothered with His insistence that loving Him will result in a lifestyle of obeying Him.  You don't have to ask for Him to send you the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT to have a changed heart.  A heart that loves others. You can ignore His merciful pleas... things like.. to not judge others, to not hurt your spouse by committing adultery, to choose the kind of treasure that no one can steal away from you. You can just close your heart to any suggestion that you should prefer someone over yourself.  And FORGIVE OTHERS?????  Forgive someone who has made you angrier than angry?  NOPE.  You don't have to.   It’s you. You. You. Only you and what you think, and what you want, and what you like. HOORAY!

You can just make up some kind of religion that looks good, looks holy, but you don’t have to LOVE ANYBODY… especially not God.  You are not required to LOVE A GOD YOU CANNOT SEE.   You know, you can go to church on Sundays, sit still for an hour, throw some money in an offering plate, and then get ON WITH YOUR LIFE.  And for SURE you don’t have to OBEY ANYBODY. You can enjoy a life of “lawlessness” which means.. not bending to anyone’s rules. HOORAY.. Make up YOUR OWN RULES.  So MUCH EASIER. Let’s face it, people are so annoying and un-love-able nowadays. People disappoint you.  Especially those FOLLOWERS of HIS.   If you reject Jesus as the Only Way to be reconciled to God, then you can just do whatever you want.  You can rant and rave and criticize others. You can do whatever feels good to you at the moment.  This is a benefit of rejecting Jesus. 

"LORD?" NOT!

And then.. He expects to be, like LORD of your life. Later for that.  You don't have to believe that this unseen person is ALIVE.. and IN HEAVEN.. and wants you to follow Him because HE created you. And knows you. And loves you. NOPE.. you can run your own life. Totally.  Because it's all or nothing with Jesus. Either you follow Him. Or you don't. Either you find the NARROW way, or you don't.  You can't ride fences with Jesus.  Who wants to ride a fence anyway? Right?  

The Con of Conviction

Conviction? What’s that?  You can tell yourself and others that the whole feeling guilty thing is a con.  You can reason that God doesn’t want people to be convicted of sin. What kind of God is intent on allowing people to die because their inherent SIN is separating the two of them.  Oh, NO…. He wants us to be happy. How in the world can you be happy if you are convinced that you are a sinner who needs forgiveness?  You can convince yourself that the whole SIN THING is a con created by church leaders centuries ago.. to keep the people enslaved to the church.  If you reject the whole idea of a Messiah who came to pay the DEATH for your sin… you can live each day KNOWING that people are created good, and perfect and without any sin or a God who wants to cleanse you from it.   You don’t have to spend even ONE SECOND asking God to reveal this kind of LOVE that would pay the price for YOUR sin. Nope. Just live each day IGNORING that tug of His call to you.  If you ignore it long enough, it goes away.

Forgetting the Future

And then you get to convince yourself that you will never die.  Such fun to believe that you are immortal, isn’t it?  Just live, live, live each day to the fullest.  Meditate in a garden somewhere. Become self-realized.  Eat, drink and be happy. Sure, all around you people die every day. But you? You have never died.  and you probably you never will.  Right? Sure. HOORAY for ETERNAL LIFE.  Not thinking about what happens after you die is so much more peaceful than considering that maybe there is a God and you might have to face Him after all.  Maybe there is sin and you have committed it and you will have to pay for it.  Maybe there are rules and you have to obey them.

The benefits of rejecting Jesus are easy to see…. if you can only focus what you see with your eyes.

You cannot, of course, see that His Love is THE Love you crave.

You cannot see that He sees you so completely and loves you just the way you are.

You cannot feel His Spirit – which He calls “The Comforter” – so you cannot feel the comfort that the Holy Spirit brings to a life that surrenders to Him.

You cannot know Truth because Jesus IS Truth. The Holy Spirit is The ONE from God who leads us in to all truth.

You cannot understand the difference between being condemned and convicted.

Being convicted simply means someone is pointing out to you that the path you are on – your behavior, your convictions, your actions, your sin – are separating you from the God Who Loves You. And giving you time to be reconnected to Him.

And then of course,

One of the down sides of rejecting Jesus is the whole NOW YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR YOUR OWN SIN side.

You will understand someday – if by chance you happen to be one of those humans who actually dies - that SIN is such an vulgar infection in the Universe that God has sent His Son to remove it.

ANYWAY.. thanks for reading this.

I pray you see that there is, actually, NO benefit to rejecting Jesus. Not one.

“God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

John 3:17-19