The Holy Spirit deals with different people in different ways. In preparing some to come to Christ, He deals with them in terms of their legal relationship to God—He is their judge and lawgiver, they are guilty criminals. They labor and are heavy-laden under a sense of their guilt.
He deals with others by showing them that life was never meant to be lived apart from God, and that the root of all their frustration and emptiness is that they have never known vital, true contact with God. There is awakened within them a sense of the absolute emptiness of life apart from the knowledge of God in Christ. And they begin to thirst.
Now we can’t dictate how the Holy Spirit should deal with men. But until they are brought to the place either of being heavy-laden or of thirsting, they cannot—they will not—come to Christ.
— A.N. Martin, from “Coming to Christ”