Homepage Message: April 2007
Living in North Central Iowa, my family and I will occasionally travel to Minnesota to do shopping or pick up someone from the airport. We load up in the van, get on Interstate 35 and travel north. The roads are easy to travel. They are well marked, and there is very little problem arriving at our destination on time.
In the winter I would much rather travel south, however I can't get to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport going south. What can I do?
I could complain the airport shouldn't only be in the north—they should have one farther south where winter isn't so severe. Or I could complain and whine there ought to be a way to get to the Minneapolis airport by traveling south. It's just not fair. Why should going north be the only way to get there from Iowa?! It leaves me and all Iowans no other choice.
Isn't this a ridiculous conversation? Yet similar words are what I hear from people who say Jesus can't be the only way to heaven. It's too restrictive, too narrow, and not right. Of course others say all religious roads lead to God. Really?! Just like all roads lead to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport?
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) Is this restrictive? Yes, in that all non-Christian religions will not reach heaven, because they espouse a different road going in a different direction. Is Jesus' way too exclusive? No! God says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) God loves the would, all six billion plus people. He died for all people: past, present and future. His invitation is to everyone, This is a universal invitation, for God's desire is no one should perish but all come to salvation.
This new life and peace with the God of the Bible can be yours by personally receiving him into your life. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12)
Won't you surrender your life into the hands of a loving God and experience new life today?