Why Some People Never Find God
Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
I’m still close with one of my childhood friends. He’s not a believer, but he seems to be in a season of searching. He will occasionally reach out to me with questions about the faith, and it makes me very encouraged to know he’s interested. However, he’ll also reach out with the most ridiculous questions or theories. He finds these crazy things on the internet, and even though these theories and videos make my eyes roll, I have to remind myself that he is searching.
Recently, he hit me with a barrage of questions about: The Ark of the Covenant, Atlantis, the Catholic church, Mary also being born of a virgin, The Gospel of the Holy 12, the additional books of the Bible, and the Ethiopian Bible. Some of these things I hadn't even heard of. In the clip about The Gospel of the Holy 12, some guy was discussing an ancient text which supposedly explains how Jesus spent the missing years of his life that are not recorded in the Bible (ages 13-29). The claim is that Jesus spent those years studying in Tibet, India, and other places to learn sacred and ancient knowledge.
When I got a glimpse of the type of stuff my friend was watching, I could tell he was all over the place. It made me wonder why people gravitate towards things that are false and fringe instead of just focusing on the truth of the scriptures. He told me that his girlfriend (who is a believer) recommended that he check out C.S. Lewis because C.S. started as an atheist much like my friend. She also suggested that he would benefit from looking into apologetics.
I thought these were good suggestions, but I wondered what he was aiming to gain from these things. So, I asked him. His response was, "Lol man you know me and the types of questions I have." And that's when it hit me... The reason why some people never find God is because they aren't looking for Him.
What Are You Looking For?
My friend is looking for answers; not God. There is nothing wrong with having questions or wanting to gain understanding, but Jesus didn't put on flesh and come here to answer questions. He came to save souls:
Luke 4:18-19 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he
hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to
set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus is in the saving business. In fact, the name Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua or Yehosha, which means "The Lord is Salvation". In short, His name means to save or to deliver. So, God's main concern with man is salvation. The people who will come to know God are those who Jesus mentioned in his mission statement: the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, and the bruised.
When my friend said he would consider apologetics to find answers, it let me know that he is trying to reason his way into truth. If the truth about God and religion could be proven through debate, facts, or history, then it would have been done long ago. A person can only reason themselves into belief to a certain point. Eventually, faith must be applied because it is impossible to please God without faith (Heb. 11:6). So, my friend's mistake is trying to discover God through his mind, instead of his heart:
Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
A Matter of the Heart
God makes it clear that we are supposed to seek him with all our heart (not our mind). This is where many atheists and non believers miss it. They approach God through their logic and reasoning with the motive to simply know or satisfy their curiosity. They want to intellectualize themselves into proving or disproving God. Paul explains the problem with this in Romans when he writes that the carnal (natural) mind is at enmity against God (Rom. 8:7-9). God doesn't respond to our mind. He responds to our heart:
Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
I do believe that my friend sincerely wants answers. However, what actually matters is if he wants to be saved. Jesus made it clear that he didn't come for those who don't need a physician, but He came for the sick (Mark 2:18). God receives a broken spirit and a contrite heart because that is what he wants to heal. Once we give the heart to Him, then He begins to renew the mind (Rom. 12:2). But it must start at the heart because God's desire is to take out the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26-33).
So, I challenge anyone who is a non believer and searching to understand God to ask yourself if you need to be saved. When you begin to approach God through the lens of salvation, with your whole heart, then you will find Him. Information is great, but you can't inform yourself into faith. If there is anyone who is a believer and knows a non believer who is searching, I encourage you to consider asking them if they want to be saved. There are so many motives as to why people want to know truth, but Jesus Christ is the truth, and He is salvation.
