Why is it so difficult for people to accept Jesus into their hearts?

This discussion originally appeared in the online forum Quora.

If you pose this question to the general public or even the Christian community, you will get a lot of interesting rhetoric and some metaphysical pondering, but few serious answers. Non-Christians are likely to mock the concept of having someone in your heart, while Christians will lament the tragedy but be unable to explain it.

Here is a list of why people might not accept Christ:

1. They have not yet heard of him. Despite millennia of evangelism, there are many people who have not heard the Gospel. And there are many in Western society who fall in this category, not just remote tribes in Papua.

2. They have a partial or incorrect understanding of the Gospel. I know many people who believe that in Christianity, our acceptance into paradise is contingent on our good deeds outweighing our bad deeds!

3. They have not given it much thought. Maybe they have a different religion or no religion, but in any case they have made no intellectual analysis of the claims about Christ.

4. They have heard and analyzed the Gospel, and reject it as unfounded, unlikely, manipulative or even farcical.

5. They accept the Gospel as possibly true, but do not perceive their own sinfulness or defiantly reject submission to any lord.

6. They understand and accept the Gospel, but do not know how to accept Jesus into their hearts.

There are likely many other reasons.

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As Christians we should reflect on the corollary, "Why do so many people claim to have accepted Christ but behave as if they have not?" This certainly has a profound effect on people who are contemplating accepting Jesus into their hearts. The strongest evangelical witness we could ever provide is to be a sincere, confident, thoughtful Christian whose actions reflect Christ's love of God and neighbour.
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So far as reason #6 above, in my understanding and experience, to accept Jesus in my heart I needed:


1. Intellectual understanding of who Christ claims to be and what he offers me. This is actually fairly clear, though there are unanswered problems, widespread misunderstandings and variant interpretations. Despite this, there is consensus on the fundamentals: see the wiki article on the Nicene Creed; and


2. Willful emotional acceptance of the man-God Jesus as lord and personal savior. This too is fairly clear: once I am aware of my own sin (Romans 3:23-24) and his solution (Intercession of Christ), I decide to accept his offer and voice this decision to him in prayer.


But having accepted Jesus as lord of my life, I have spent 40 years studying to improve my understanding, discerning what he commands me to do, wrestling with doubt, and railing against his difficult assignments.