“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
One of the reasons that people don’t believe is because they have a will not to believe. We see this, for example, in deceived husbands, parents whose children are missing in action, businessmen facing imminent bankruptcy. It is a common enough thing, simple human nature; when the mind cannot face up to a truth that is too difficult to accept, it turns away as though the mere fact of denying the truth will conjure away the reality. That is what the will not to believe is. The notion of having an eternal transcendent God, who demands obedience from His people, is too much for some; they deny His existence and develop a sophisticated rationale in support of their rejection of the notion of God’s existence.
Alternatively, those professing a belief in Him organise Churches, in which the exercise of faith can be undertaken along manageable lines, managed by men, that is. Thus, the Church becomes a vehicle for disseminating Christianity, whereas it is called to be a living witness of Christ Jesus; that is, a Body in which Christ Himself lives and out of which the life of Christ shines forth, thus bearing witness, by its life and the lives of the saints therein, of the One dwelling within.
Alas, the reality is that today it does the work of men, not of Christ. Christ is in the shop window, but if you enter, what you will see is men at work.
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