Summary

Stubborn by Nature Word on the Week 10th January 2026.
The thought that I was, and to some extent still am, stubborn by nature, occurred to me the other day. This stubbornness showed big time when it came to Jesus. I can recall my initial brush with the Lord. It happened in my teenage years and having done the Sunday School/Church Service thing decided that if this was all there was then I could manage life on my own.
What got me thinking was something written by Professor David Gooding (1925 – 2018) when he was working in Queen’s University, Belfast. It was in a book co-authored with John Lennox called The Bible and Ethics. In reading it I could see my former rebellion laid bare!
Man’s original sin was to go their own way rather than God’s way (Genesis 3 verses 1 -10). Gooding identified that one act of disobedience as having injected into the human race a ‘virulent poison of determined independence of God’.
I could certainly recognise carrying that poison well into my 20ies and have had flashbacks to this day. But, of course, it is one of the most evident hurdles that people stumble over in preventing them coming to Christ.
My years of living the Christian ethic to my own satisfaction without the Bible seemed to be so right! It’s never easy to acknowledge you are so wrong!
Humankind on its own always ends up in a mess. We live in an era which ably demonstrates this. The more Man wants his own objectives without God the deeper the troubles become.
God invites you to come to Him - come under His control. Come without trying to do better - come as you are. Get in step with Jesus. Give Him your burdens (Matthew 11 verses 28-30).
Joseph Hart the hymn writer acknowledges the problem: -
Come you weary heavy laden,
Bruised and broken by the fall;
If you wait until you’re better,
You will never come at all:
Not the righteous – not the righteous
Sinners Jesus came to call.

Hart writes to a category we all belong to (Romans 3 verse 23)!
Take Hart’s advice.