The Magnet

As I have thought about the Easter message this year, it has become clear to me just how far Jesus’ expectations were shaped by the cross. In no way did it come to Him as a disappointment or a shock. He foresaw that the cross would not be a place of defeat; far from it. Instead it would become a massive magnet to draw people to Him.

“... I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32 ESV)

I discovered early in life the pull of the magnet. It has drawn me throughout my days. It started when I was six years old and saw a Gospel Hall being built at the bottom of our lane in Guernsey. I was drawn to that place and joined the Sunday school there. I never had a great attendance record. When I was 10 I left, questioning the existence of God.

My mother took seriously her promises, made when I was christened, to bring me up as a Christian. She sought out a church where she could take me, and attend herself, rather than just send me. There the magnet’s drawing power worked on me again. I can't say I was particularly thrilled by the style of this church – very urban, very social gospel – but nonetheless I wanted to belong. This was unusual for me because normally I wasn’t a joiner. None of the youth organisations that were available to me appealed to me at all and I was not very well adjusted socially. However, I enrolled in a membership class and became a member of the church on Easter Day 1967.

I wanted to serve – the magnet was now drawing me into service – and I taught Junior Church. At first I was a poor specimen of a teacher of Christian things. I was not a believer and indeed dismissed many of the essential doctrines. But somehow the attraction of the Lord Jesus Christ simply kept pulling me onwards. I became a committed Christian when I was eighteen. My parents and I then migrated to the UK. My desire to serve now took a different route. I trained as a local preacher and then as a minister.

But it would be wrong to say I had “arrived” at that point. I felt increasingly uneasy with the old denominations and their compromises with the world. Independency seemed the right place to be.

Many times, after making the move, I wondered what on earth had happened to me. In ministry in Independency I seemed to be permanently beating my head against a brick wall. But my sense of being called – and that magnet – never stopped drawing me forward. This late in my pastoral working life, I am delighted to have found a place in an Independent church which allows me space to breathe and to serve.

Why should this magnetic power have drawn me throughout the years while others simply have not felt it? I can offer no explanation for that. I suppose it is same as in the case of real magnets. They may come into contact with a variety of metals. Yet only certain sorts respond to the magnet. Others are immovable and unchanged. But if God has His sovereign hand upon a person, the magnet will unfailingly draw them.

I don’t know whether you feel the pull of the magnet, the drawing power of the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose again. Perhaps it is simply a matter of seeing for yourself how attractive His story really is. Other stories may look intriguing and draw you into them, but all eventually display their limits. The drawing power of Christ goes on for ever. I believe I will always be led by Him – to my dying day and beyond.