By Carl McNeill
Your Pastor Speaks
I remember being on a mission trip with a group and we were in route to one of the churches in the area. One of my missionary friends was driving the vehicle, our native pastor was in the passenger seat and I and another man from our missionary crew were in the back.
As we were going thru town, traffic was thick and my friend decided to dodge into a side street to find a quicker route. As we were turning I saw a very small sign on a post that looked like an arrow inside a circle with a line drawn through it. I asked the question (probably a little too late), are we supposed to be going this way?
In about 30 seconds the answer became abundantly clear as a local policeman (with a machine gun) came strolling up to the driver’s side window wanting to see my friends identification. The native pastor was able to converse with the officer in the native language and for a few minutes, gave a number of reasons why he was going the wrong way.
He tried to explain that the driver was not familiar with the area, did not see the sign, could not read the language, and that we were trying to do a good work for the country. The driver misunderstood that he was going the wrong direction. Fortunately, the officer finally did let us go with a warning, but he also gave us a new understanding.
The lesson learned was this. Despite our unfamiliarity, lack of understanding, inability to comprehend, and even our good intentions, we were still guilty of breaking the law. None of those things were an excuse. We were going the wrong way, and in all honesty the officer probably saved us from a worse situation down the street.
Our journey thru life is a lot like that mission trip. We can be traveling the road of life, with very good intentions, doing our best to get by and drive right past the signs of warning. At first we may not understand everything that we see…. or we ignore them because we have places to be, or things to do that seem more important. However, the reality is still the same. We are going the wrong direction, and we are heading for destruction.
A man named Thomas once asked Jesus this question. “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus said to Thomas “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:5-6). The amazing thing about Jesus statement was how absolute it was. Jesus did not say He was “a” way to the Father, He said He was “the” way to the Father.
In other words, if we are trying to get to heaven, there is only one way. It doesn’t matter if we are unfamiliar with Jesus, don’t understand Him, ignore everything we hear about Him, or have the best of intentions in trying to get to heaven a different way, we are still guilty of going the wrong direction, and that will end in disaster.
Thankfully on our trip the one who enforced that law showed us mercy, and kept us from going down a path to greater destruction. In fact God has done the same thing for us. Not only has he show us the way, but he paid the penalty we deserved for going the wrong way. The penalty of sin is death. Jesus paid that penalty for us by giving His life on a cross in our place.
You see all along the pathway of your life, God is placing signs telling you that you are going the wrong way. It may be a pastor, a Christian you work with, a social media post, a youtube video, or even this article. Something that you may be trying to ignore, but keeps getting your attention and pointing you a different direction that what you are going. Jesus is the only one who came from heaven to earth.
Heaven is His home, and He is the only one who knows how to get back. Only He knows the way. That way is thru a relationship with Him. Good works, religious acts, giving money, or being blessed by good people are good things, but they are not the way. (read Proverbs 14:12).
There is only One Way. Don’t miss the sign. It is pointing you toward Jesus.
McNeill is pastor of Northtowne Church of God.
