Why Are You Wrestling With Jesus?

Why is it so hard to follow Jesus? Because we want Jesus and our sin. Sure, we don't call it sin but anything that is in contrast to Father's character and will are sin. Following Jesus becomes a struggle when our desires are for things that don't line up with him and the Spirit brings in conviction and correction. Although circumstances may not be in our favour all the time, when we walk with Jesus, and not try to get Jesus to walk with us, we have peace, contentment and confidence. This also impacts our understanding of purpose.

I do not adhere to what some people consider to be the prosperity gospel but I do believe in Father's desire for us to be prosperous. Father's sense of prosperity is not creature comforts but the things that impact eternity and the battle we are engaged in in this place. His prosperity includes whatever it is we need to complete our assignment. I see this in the scripture when Jesus tells us to ask whatever we wish and it will be given, and in the scripture that records him as telling us to ask, seek, and knock. He was speaking to his fighters, his warriors, his witnesses in this place and he promised a response.

We don't know how the conviction of the Holy Spirit works. We don't know whose heart has been prepared. What we do know is that we have been told to scatter the seed. We have been told to go throughout the world, to every nation, and tell people the good news about Jesus. We were not told to legislate righteousness. We were not told to force people into belief. We were told to spread the seed and the Spirit would do the rest:

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. (Mark 4:26-27)

This is Jesus speaking. We don't know how the seed grows and we don't need to. We are simply told to scatter it. Then the Spirit does what is natural to him:

For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. (v. 28)

The process of conviction is as natural as the growth of a plant, but it starts with the planting of a seed. Just like we can't hear the voice of Jesus without the Word hidden in our heart, the sinner cannot be convicted without the seed. It is not your opinion of that seed but the seed itself that enables the Spirit to convict and we have been given the task of sowing that seed.

This is our purpose in whatever form it takes. It should not matter to us if we are rich or poor, have a car or take the bus, live in the best part of town or the worse. All that matters is what we do with what we have and what we say to who we are with, This is what we will be held accountable for so do you think that Father wants us spending our days seeking things of this world, which will pass away, or seeking the things of the Kingdom of God, which is for eternity? It gets a lot easier when we stop fighting against his will.