Answer: Do you remember when the disciples had been fishing all night and had caught nothing (Luke 5:3-4)? Christ told them to go out and try again. Peter makes an excuse but does what Christ commands, and as a result caught an astonishing drought of fishes. So try again. Make every effort once again to receive Him. You do not know what success He may give you.Frankly, it is not your failure in trying to come to Christ, but your willingness to give up trying that will be your ruin. The woman of Canaan in her cries to Christ for mercy persisted though rebuffed three times (Matt 15:22-28). Firstly, Christ did not respond to her cries. Then His disciples desired that He would send her away. Then Christ gave her two reasons why He should not answer her request. But still she does not give up. She goes on crying for mercy. Had she given up she would never have had the answer to her prayer. It may be you have prayed, and cried and promised, but all without success-as you suppose. Nevertheless, if you do not give up, you will win through in the end. You do not know when God will come to you with His grace. You do not know when Christ will reveal His love to you as He did to the poor woman in spite of His earlier rebuffs. As far as you know, He may enable you to receive Christ today. But if not, then He will enable you to receive Him tomorrow or at some later day. Persevere! That is your duty. Do not give up in despair.
Take hold of this promise: "Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors" (Prov 8:34). If you hear Him and wait, though you have not yet been admitted into His presence, but seem to be kept at the gate, in the end you will be blessed.
The rule to follow is this: "Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord." If we do that, then, "He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth" (Hosea 6:3). Are you doing everything in your power to come to the knowledge of Christ? Even although you do not yet have any evidence that you have received Him, nothing can ruin you, but your giving up in despair. If you make every effort to know the Lord, then He will come to you like the rain. Many could tell you that if they had given up when overwhelmed with difficulties and disappointments, they would have been utterly ruined forever. But now they are at rest and at peace in the bosom of Christ. Unable to accept Christ teaching, many disciples "went back and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66). Christ lost many disciples, and they lost their souls. Beware, then, of letting discouragement persuade you to give up. " John Owen, The Glory of Christ, abridged pp135-137.
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