Last week, I saw that the topic #whychooseJesus was trending. (Note: Many phrases are identified as hashtags (#tags) so that people can be sure to identify their tweet with a particular topic.) I clicked on the topic title and was lead to a long list of #whychooseJesus tweets. The topic discussion was pretty spot-on. People said you should choose Jesus because “He died for us,” “He is the way, the truth, and the light,” and because “His love never fails.” That is all true, and great reasons to be thankful for who He is and what He does for us. For the record, I have no problem with the trend thread and I completely support their efforts.
However, the first question that came to my mind was, “Do we really choose him?” I realize that we have to make a decision to follow Him. I know we teach the ABC’s of salvation at VBS. But is it really a choice of “Jesus vs. Something Else?”
Think about it. Have you ever known anybody that believed wholeheartedly that Jesus is the Son of God and that He fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament indicating He is the Christ, yet they chose not to follow him? Maybe you have, and I am not saying it is impossible, but I have never seen it.
In my experience, once somebody has an interaction with Christ that convinces them that He is the truth, they acknowledge Him as their Lord and start down a path of trying to live for Him. Nobody gets it perfectly right. We could never come close to living how Jesus did. But I do believe that people that really know Him at least give it a shot.
I don’t want to get into a debate about backsliding or “once in grace, always in grace.” But I have a very hard time believing that somebody can know Jesus and completely understand who He is and what He expects of us and then turn around and pretend like He isn’t there. To me, that seems impossible. I believe that it indicates that a person does not know Jesus after all.
So do we really choose Jesus? I think that there really is no choice to be made once you know Him. Either you believe Jesus is the Christ or you don't. So maybe the more appropriate topic may be #whygettoknowJesus. It is entirely possible for people to completely ignore the gospel and never look into it for themselves. That can make it difficult to experience Christ. So encouraging people to at least listen to the gospel and find out what all the fuss is about is a more reasonable request.
Please leave your comments below. I am really anxious to see how others view this issue.