When you get to be a pastor then you get to hear from a lot of different people and they tell you their “spiritual” stories. Many times they are encouraging, but often I hear of why people “used to be” a Christian or why they “used to” go to church. Some of the reasons they tell me truly break my heart. I’ve heard of bad experiences within churches, so bad it caused people to walk away. Some read the Bible and notice an apparent discrepancy and think, well the whole Bible must not be true, why be a Christian? Some can’t reconcile what they know about science with the creation story. There seem to be a lot of reasons people use to walk away.

What makes me so sad for these people who walk away is that, most of the time, the reasons people use to walk away rarely have anything to do with the actual gospel. Though I am confident Jesus can answer all of the tough questions people may have, answering tough, trivial questions are not the reason He came. “He came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) He came to restore a broken relationship with God.  He came to display God’s love to the world and to bring peace to the brokenhearted. What He came to offer is so much more than getting a trivial question answered.

If you are a “used to be” I pray you would reconsider. I pray you would take another look at the actual gospel. Look at what Jesus is really offering and I challenge you to compare it to what anyone else on the planet is offering. You will find there is no one who has a greater gift. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, will never perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)