Comment me no coments has begun a whole series with The Simple Gospel: Responses, part 1 in which he will be responding point by point to my explanation of my wife's simple gospel presentation.

He quotes my first point-

1. God made everything that exists out of nothing and made mankind as the pinnacle of his creation designed for a relationship with him. This desire for a relationship is hardwired into us, and one of the evidences for this is our stubborn insistence in clinging onto notions like morality, love, individual choice, nobility and the reality of the conscious self in the face of people telling us we are nothing but a machine.

And responds brilliantly as follows

I quite wholeheartedly concur. Perhaps I would say it thus:

God created the universe as an environment for humanity and as a medium of revelation to humanity. Humans are created by God to enjoy Him and to enter more and more deeply into a love relationship with Him. Because God is infinitely desirable, it is only with a great and continuous effort, aided by the world, the flesh, and the devil, that we can avoid loving Him and surrendering to His love."

You might be surprised that I concur so strongly with this description as a calvinist. But, I do believe that God should not get any of the blame for our repeated refusal to recognise him for who he is and his worth. To be honest even as Christians, even as preachers we constantly fail to fully appreciate the wonder of God. How can we not be drawn to love and worship more in surrender to him? How is it that we don't pray more?

A mark of a Christian according to God quoted in Acts is that he prays. (see Sauls conversion). How is it that we do not realise more our need of him and cast ourselves wholely on his mercy? God is love. What is there in this world that can compete with him and draw us away from him?