From Easter to Pentecost! That’s how long it has taken me to confront five seemingly simple questions! Certainly this is the main reason I’ve not updated this blog since my last message at Easter. I confess when I put forth those questions to you my dear friends and to myself of course, I had not expected the difficulty I was going to face grappling with these five seemingly simple questions. In fact, I gave the promise to share my answers to the questions on this blog.
Well, unless you have taken these questions to heart, I bet now you won’t remember what they were, so let me recap. I concluded my last blog entitled “Soul-searching this season” with these five questions:
1 Why do I welcome Jesus into my life?
2 Why am I drawn to Jesus?
3 What do I want from Jesus?
4 What if I don’t get what I want from Him or what if Jesus wants something from me that I’m unwilling or reluctant to give?
5 Will I also, like the crowd in Jerusalem, turn my back to Jesus?

Answer to Q1:
I am convinced that Jesus is as He claimed “The Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Q2 Why am I drawn to Jesus? (Mmmm….I find this one extremely challenging!)

Answer: I was deeply drawn to Bible stories about Jesus’ miraculous conception, circumstances of His birth, His teaching, parables and revelations about Our Father in Heaven and the Kingdom of God which fascinated me as a child although it was far beyond my comprehension, they made an indelible impression in my young mind.

Later as a teenager, what touched my heart most was the personality of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Gospel accounts – His gentle nature and infinite compassion towards the sick, the frail, invalid, disabled and towards those in captivity and hunger. I used to be very impressed learning that Jesus really cared so much for both the spiritual and physical condition of people that He would perform miracles to feed the hungry and with merely a few loaves and tiny fishes, He produced more food than the people could take after eating to their heart’s content!

Years later in my adult life, what drew me closer to Jesus was the growing personal conviction about Sin. This was a great big leap for me in my Christian walk because during my younger days, although I thought I believed in God and Jesus in a general sort of way, I used to have doubts and many questions one of which was doubting the theology of original Sin. In my immature understanding, I used to reflect if God was not being totally unfair to condemn the entire human race just because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve?
For a number of years in my early adult life, I also did put Christ on the shelf and pursued my own interests and career not really as if He didn’t exist but more like these things wouldn’t be of interest to Him – so I thought! It was only after going through some hard knocks in life that I came to admit and confess my need for Him and realize Christ is indeedWorthy, more than deserving to be enthroned in my life, to take His rightful place as Lord of All!

Q3 What do I want from Jesus?
Answer: Firstly, to be reconciled to God and be redeemed from all my sins. Also, to learn from Him how I should live and pray for the strength and grace to abide in Him. Further, I want to know Jesus and my Father in heaven more intimately and find my place and purpose and His Will for my life.

Q4 What if I don’t get what I want from Him or what if Jesus wants something from me that I’m unwilling or reluctant to give?
Answer: I believe Jesus knows me much better than I know myself and He would not put me to any test to see me fall from grace but that He came to save the fallen. So I trust that when I’m put to the test, He knows exactly what it takes to bring me through to the point of voluntary submission, willingly and happily then will I surrender to His demand. This reminds me of Jonah. Jonah’s experience does assure me that as I’m just pint-size in comparison, this question of my rebellion may not arise at all?

Q5 Will I also, like the crowd in Jerusalem, turn my back to Jesus?
Answer: What I said in answer to Q4 applies here as well. Besides I think , unless I’ve gone bonkers, there is little likelihood of my turning back on Jesus because to turn back would be to reject in entirety Truth, Life and what I believe.

Each of us go through a different spiritual walk and will respond differently to these questions. How about you?
If you feel disposed to share your response, I invite you to post them below- Click on Comment and enter your post.

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
C S Lewis