Many struggle with how to make people listen, and how to make people accept their message when they communicate with people.
Why do people not listen to you? Why do people hate you?
Have you considered that you could be the cause?
Have you been talking about a God of peace while portraying an angry and violent deity?
You make people hate you and your message when you use violence and coercion.
People may reject your message or opinion if you do not articulate your message convincingly. Think of how to make your message (or the information you are sharing) interesting to the listener.
Do not become frustrated and lose your temper when people reject your message. Do not use violence to make people accept what you are offering them.
Preach the God of Peace. Preach the God who cares and loves, and people will want Him to be their Lord. Don’t tell them about a loving God, and then present an angry and violent God! Don’t tell people your God loves, and then go out to kidnap helpless, defenseless girls and women.
Don’t tell people your God is compassionate and then go round capturing helpless people and decapitating them. You make people to hate your God when you do that.
God is Peace; He publishes peace and love
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!'” (Isaiah 52:7; New King James Version)
Faith comes by hearing not by torture; not by compulsion.
(You may want to read “Murder and rape in God’s name”…)
Help listeners make informed decisions by properly articulating your beliefs.
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” (Romans 10:17; New King James Version).
People must not be tortured to generate faith in them. “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” (Romans 10:10; New King James Version).
When you force people and torture them, you send the wrong message. You make people hate your religion. They associate your religion with violence and hate. They see your God to be an angry and violent God; and no matter how hard you try to make them see that your God and your religion is not evil, they will continue to see them as evil.
Your anger and violence will continue to erect walls of hate and anger. You should, therefore, show love and tolerance by demonstrating love and tolerance for people to see love and tolerance in your message.
Jesus and His followers did not use the sword to make people accept their message. He preached against violence, and told His disciples not to use violence to make people believe in Him.
He told His disciples to convince listeners. If the listener will not readily respond favorably, help create the necessary reaction that will trigger the interest in him or her. Jesus always led people to think through by asking questions like,
• “Who do men say that I the son of man am?”……
• “Who do you say I am?”
Jesus also made people to think through on what He told them. He was not in a hurry; he led His targets gradually to the point where they could assimilate the truth of His message. He addressed the need of His listeners. He told the Samaritan woman,
“Anyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but anyone who drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
The Samaritan woman’s desire was aroused and she asked for that kind of water which could make a well of water to spring up into everlasting life inside her.
When you make the listener reason through, he or she will become involved in finding the answer or solution together with you. He or she will not see the answer as one that has been pushed down his or her throat.
Note also that, in spite of all your efforts, there will be a few who will still not accept your views or message. Francis Bacon said, “People usually prefer to believe what they prefer to be true.”
