You may know that magnets have a north and south pole. When two magnets are brought together, they will behave in one of two ways. Opposite poles attract, whereas like poles repel each other. Very interesting.
To illustrate a point, let’s keep it simple. North is up, heaven is up. South is down, hell is down. Therefore the north is good and the south is bad.
God sends His Son, Jesus to us. He is from the north and uniquely charged that way, there’s nothing bad in Him. His purpose is to attract those heading south to Himself with an unbreakable bond. He wants to change us. Why? So He can us with Him back to God in heaven. So far, so good?
Spoiler Alert! Without Jesus, we’re all heading south but God does NOT want that.
Jesus is the opposite of us in every real way that matters. He came as a man but unlike us remained sinless. He lived a perfect life, revealing the real, costly love of God. The goodness of God always shines out of Him, He is in a right relationship with God the Father. He is a beautiful light in a dark world. He laid down his life, willingly suffering a brutal death on the cross for us. He did it for you and me. He did it so we can be reconciled back to God the Father through Him. He took the punishment we deserved. Now, that’s attractive. That’s not typical human behaviour, typical human behaviour would be the opposite.
Jesus is attractive so everyone is drawn to Him for salvation, right? I suspect you know the answer is unfortunately no. So how can that be? We’ve just established in this analogy that Jesus is the North Pole and we’re the South Pole. Opposites attract so what’s the issue? Some people are repelled by Him. The only way that could be is if their North Pole is facing the loving North Pole of Jesus.
What does this mean? Let’s say people are like a rectangular magnet with both a North and South pole. The North Pole represents how people think and believe about themselves. The South Pole is the not-so-good stuff. Therefore, it depends on which way a person is facing as to how they will respond to Jesus. People will reject Jesus if they wrongly believe they don’t need Him. These people turn their back to Jesus thinking they’re good people and in control of any of the not-so-good stuff in their lives. They can handle it.
They trust in themselves, others or things in the world for their destiny. They use their own flawed North Pole as their saviour. They attempt to hide their sin from God and even themselves. This false North Pole repels the North Pole of Jesus.
The answer is simple but humbling. All people have to do is turn around and face Jesus. Give Him all the not-so-good stuff of the South Pole. Bear it all out, hide nothing. He will take it and remove it. We must NOT trust in our false North Pole and our limited understanding. We can NOT make ourselves right before God. Only Jesus can do that. He is more than willing. Turn away from self-reliance and let Him do it.
Openness with God is the key to freedom!
Awesome piece of thinking, Troy. Thank you.