Verse: John 14:3-6
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Devotional Thoughts:
Two actual conversations that I’ve had:
Convo #1
Friend: You see, Zac, there are many ways to get into heaven. Jesus, Joseph Smith, Buddha – they are all different revelations or representations of the same God. They all provide a way to get to heaven.
Me: So you think all of these different revelations are arguing amongst themselves?
Friend: Not at all. It’s the people following these different religions that cause all the arguments and all the anger toward each other.
Me: Well, Jesus said that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. And that no one comes to the Father except through him. So if Buddha thinks he provides a way to heaven, and Jesus says that he is the only way to heaven, then naturally there would be disagreements. So that means that either one of them is right and the other wrong, or that God himself is indecisive, argumentative, and, in general, can’t make up his mind.
Convo #2
Friend: I like to compare heaven to a mountain peak. There are many different routes and trails up the mountain, but they all lead to the same destination. Heaven is like that, there are many different routes that lead to the same place.
Me: Jesus came to earth and died on a cross so that we might be saved. Why would he do that if there were many other ways? Could you really say to Jesus, “Thanks for dying on the cross, but I could’ve gotten to heaven another way?”
Friend: Yes, I believe I could.
In the first conversation, I was chatting with a co-worker in Yellowstone. In the second conversation, I was a student at Bethel University, talking with another student who was planning on going into the ministry.[1]
Points to Ponder:
It’s easy to read this and think: What’s the point? I don’t believe Buddha or Joseph Smith is a way to heaven. I don’t believe there are many “routes” to heaven like you’d find on a mountain.
But here’s the thing – too many Christians who find those ideas ridiculous have bought into the false narrative that being a good person leads to heaven.
Friends, this is simply not true. Adrian Rogers explains it like this:
If you extracted from every person on earth the very best character traits and put them all into one person, that one would still have to bow before God and cry out for mercy to be saved.
Jesus said plainly in Mark 10:18, “No one is good except God alone.” Jesus has been the only one ever to live a perfect life. Through Jesus, and Jesus alone, we have victory. Through Jesus, and Jesus alone, we have eternal life. You can’t be good enough to earn your salvation, and if that’s true, then you can’t be bad enough to lose your salvation.
If you trust in Jesus, then you are secure in Jesus. So hop off the hamster wheel of self-righteousness. Stop trying to earn a victory that’s already been won. And find your rest in Jesus alone.
[1] This friend at Bethel approached me a couple weeks later and said that, after some thinking about it, he agreed with me that Jesus was the only way to heaven.
