Each of you, if you’re a follower of Christ, have at least one or two people in your life who seem like they’ll never put their faith in Christ. They’re the coworker who you watch your words around lest they begin berating you about the evils of religion. They’re the family member who is more than ready to enter into a quickly-escalating debate about the existence of God over the dinner table, much to everyone else’s chagrin. They’re the friend who you’ve known for years and love and are beginning to despair of them ever seeing the truth of what you so passionately believe.
It’s discouraging to go month after month, year after year in prayer and faithful truth-speaking and see no apparent fruit. But don’t give up just because it’s hard. In fact, don’t give up just because it’s impossible.
In Mark 10 Jesus makes the statement, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” His disciples, rightly appalled at this statement, begin to question Jesus about how exactly someone can be saved if it’s something as utterly impossible as fitting a six-foot-tall dromedary through a needle hole. With his typical, beautiful brevity Jesus replies, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” By God, the camel can and will fit through the needle’s eye.
Those people in your life who are fiercely against Christianity? That friend you’ve been longing to see encounter Jesus in a life-changing way? They’re the camel, and all things are possible.
Don’t give up on that person – those people. Continue faithfully demonstrating and declaring the glorious truth of the Gospel. Continue in your prayer. No matter how hard-hearted or resistant the person, God is still able to accomplish the impossible. It is there, in the fitting of camel-people through the eye of the Gospel’s needle, that God gets the greatest glory. He can still raise a dead soul to life and open those blinded eyes to see the beauty of Christ. Believe it, and act accordingly.
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