When Family and Friends Reject Christ – Sunday Thought For The Day

We all have family and friends who aren’t saved. They’ve seen the difference Christ has made in our lives after we’ve accepted Him as our Savior. We’ve shared the message of salvation with them. We’ve spoken to them about the fate that awaits those who aren’t saved when they die. We love them and pray for them; yet they steadfastly refuse to accept Christ. They either don’t see their need to accept Christ or they refuse Him because the enemy has hardened their heart. Even worst, are our family/friends who think they’re saved and they aren’t.

It’s painful for us to know what awaits them, but ultimate they’ve made the decision to reject Christ. That said, we cannot allow their rejection of Christ to lure us away from God.

Thinking about family and close friends who are not saved reminds me of Noah. It took Noah between 100 and 120 years to build the Ark. During that time his friends and the people around him witnessed the construction of a vessel unlike any they had ever seen. That sanctuary from the wrath of God was being prepared in front of their faces, but their defiant disobedience prevented them from repenting and turning to God.

In the end only Noah and his family along with a male and female of each animal were spared God’s wrath.

Like Noah and his family, we must be resolute in our obedience to our Lord and that begins with accepting His only plan of Salvation. It isn’t easy watching people we know and love die without Christ. But we cannot overlook the fact that God has given us “free Will,” which means He will not force us or coerce us into accepting His only plan of Salvation.

That doesn’t mean we stop praying for them or stop loving them; but it does mean that we cannot force them to accept the “Truth.” Just as we have made the choice to accept Christ and live our lives in obedience to God, so too have they made their decision not to.

READ: Genesis 6:5-8 (KJV)
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.