Jesus Saves
“Jesus saith unto him, I Am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” John 14:6
Why do so many people have such a hard time with this statement by Jesus? He couldn’t have been any clearer as to how a person can come to personally know and to be accepted by the God of all creation, the sovereign, holy, and righteous Father. There are countless folks who believe that there are many paths to God. Some believe that their “good” works will be sufficient, yet works are judged by God’s standard, not ours. He requires perfection, that is, never doing anything that is even remotely wrong, never thinking a bad, lustful, or hateful thought, and never saying anything but the truth. And the list goes on. In addition to never, ever committing a sin, the “perfect” person must always abide by God’s will, that is, do everything He commands when and where He commands it with joy in the heart and a smile on the face. Well, that pretty much eliminates every person that has ever been born except One, Jesus Christ.
Some say they believe in God yet refuse to acknowledge His Son Jesus as Lord and Savior. Why do they think they can bypass His Son and be accepted by God? Think about it in a personal way. Any loving parent would not develop a close relationship with a person who disparaged, ridiculed, belittled, harmed, and/or treated the parent’s child as completely insignificant, as if the child didn’t exist. It is in a parent’s DNA to protect his or her children. We all have heard the old saying, “You can say anything you want about me, but leave my child alone.” It is in our heavenly Father’s nature to protect and provide for His children, but He is under no obligation to allow into His family those who reject His Son. Revelation 22:14 tells us that “Bless are they who do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city.” As far as works go, Jesus said in John 6:29 when asked what works could be done to satisfy God, “This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.”
The most logical question that is asked is why would God put His only Son through such an ordeal as the suffering and brutal crucifixion if there were other ways to be reconciled to the Father? I think that many people do not really understand how seriously God takes sin. All sin, no matter how minor that we might measure it, is against God. Scripture tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), thus sin is “paid for” either by an individual paying his own penalty or by receiving Jesus’ death on the cross as full payment for his or her sin. Either way, sin is punished.
God, in His righteousness and justice gives us a choice. We can repent and turn from our prideful, sinful lifestyles and place our faith in Jesus Christ, or we can choose to reject the one and only way of total forgiveness and pay for our sin ourselves in a place of eternal punishment. Years ago I was working in a retail store. There were two of my co-workers who were in a conversation. One was a young man who claimed to be an atheist. The other was an older woman who was a believer and whose husband was a pastor of a local church. The lady was witnessing to him. The young man said, “When I die, I will be just like a dog who dies. I will just be a dead dog.” She said, “If you are right, then I haven’t lost anything by serving Christ. But what if I am right and you are wrong?” As another old saying goes: “Eternity is too long to be wrong.”