It was said of the Roman Empire, "All of its roads lead back to Rome." Is this true of God as well? Do all roads or religions lead to God?
The answer is yes!
Every path a person takes in life or any religion they follow in this world, in fact, will lead to God. However, the question is:
When you stand before God will you be acceptable or unacceptable to Him?
What do you think makes a person acceptable before God?
• Knowledge?
• Good works?
• Moral lifestyle?
• Religious duties?
Make us acceptable before Him?
God's Word reveals that He requires perfect righeousness.
"For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face." (Ps.11:7)
To behold the face of God means to have the light of His favor to shine upon you. In the Scriptures, only those who were upright held this aspiration. However, to be upright or righteous in God's sight means never to deviate from God's perfect standard given in His Law.
Have you met that standard?
God's Word reveals that He requires perfect holiness.
"Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt.5:48)
"Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor." (Hab.1:13)
Because the nature of God is holy, He is totally opposed to that which is inconsistent with His nature. He cannot pass by sin without doing something about it. He cannot separate His nature (who He is) from His justice (what He does). So if God is Holy, which He is, and we are less than holy, which we are, then do you think God will bypass our imperfection and let us into heaven?
Understanding what it means to be a sinner
To be a sinner means more than just being less than perfect. It means more than just making mistakes or failing from time to time. To be a sinner, in Biblical terms, means to lack conformity to the law of God, in act, habit, attitude, outlook, disposition, motivation, and mode of existence.
It means:
• Missing the mark God sets for us to aim at
• Crossing the line of God's law (transgression)
• Disobeying God's directives
• Offending God's purity
• Rebelling against God's call and commands
• Fighting against God by playing God yourself
This is what sin is. Are you guilty of any of these things?
At the very beginning, God set the just payment for sin.
"...for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." (Gen.2:17)
"The soul who sins will die." (Ezek.18:4)
"The wages of sin is death..." (Rom.6:23)
So why hasn't God dealt with us in judgment already? He has restrained Himself, in love, and provided a way to make people who are less than perfect (sinners) acceptable to Him.
What has God done to make us acceptable before Him?
"It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners..." (1 Tim.1:15)
When the Apostle Paul speaks of Christ coming into the world, he is not merely expressing a change of place,
from heaven to earth, but rather, of Christ coming into a realm of darkness and shame, of evil and sin; namely, our world. Why does our world consist of these things?
Because sinners live here.
So why would Christ come into a world like this? What could someone as perfect and holy as Christ have to do with coming into a place such as this world?
There is only one answer: to save sinners!
The primary reason God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world was not to:
• Save you from ignorance by educating you
• Save you from physical and social difficulties
• Open a pathway of salvation for you
• Remove obstacles in the way of your salvation
• Introduce to you a standard of life that makes salvation possible
• Help you to save yourself
He came to save us. And it is for this reason that His name is Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt.1:21). The ultimate and primary reason that He came was to save us. He came to be our complete and actual Savior!
Our three-fold need
Before sin entered the world, Adam enjoyed a three-fold privilege in relation to God:
1. He was in fellowship with God
2. He knew God personally
3. He possessed spiritual life
However, he severed this three-fold privilege when he disobeyed and fell into sin. Now every sinner has a three-fold need:
1. Reconciliation with God
2. Illumination to understand God
3. Regeneration or new life from God
The Savior, Jesus Christ, perfectly meets this three-fold need. He is the Way to the Father. He is the Truth incarnate. He is the Life to all who believe in Him.
"Jesus said, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'" (Jn.14:6)
I am the Way
Jesus is the Way to the Father.
Because of sin, we all devise ways to attempt to reach God.
• Resolutions - I will promise to do better.
• Reformation - I will change my ways.
• Religion - I will join a church, pray, get baptized and do good deeds.
However, they all fail to reach God. Why?
"There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Prov.14:12)
Every way that we come up with fails to make us acceptable to God, but the good news is that Christ has come all the way down to sinners. We, as sinners, could never come up to God, so God, in the person of Christ has come down to us. He is the Way: the Way to the Father, the Way to Heaven, and the Way to Eternal life.
I am the Truth
Jesus is the Truth incarnate.
How can we know what God is like and the way to Him? Jesus is the full and final revelation of God Himself.
Why do we need an understanding of who God is?
Because our minds and hearts have been darkened by sin.
"The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble." (Prov.4:19)
"...being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart." (Eph.4:19)
"Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices." (Eccl. 7:29)
"There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God." (Rom.3:11)
Man looks for truth in many places:
• In the world of facts, as in science
• In the world of mystery, as in psychics
• In the world of feelings
However, the Bible declares that truth is found in a Person: Christ is the truth. He reveals the truth about God and He reveals the truth about us.
I am the Life
Jesus is the liberator from death.
The Bible speaks of three kinds of death:
1. Physical death - when the soul is separated from the body
2. Spiritual death - when the soul is separated from God
3. Eternal death - when the soul is separated from God forever
If you have not been born again by God's Spirit and reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then right now you are spiritually dead. You ask: How can I know this is true of me?
• Do you have any love for the things of God (His Word, His people, His purposes)?
• Do you have any fear of God (respect and adoration for Him)?
• Are you concerned for His glory and His purposes?
• Is He the center of your thoughts and plans?
If you said no to any or all of these things, then you are spiritually dead. Jesus said:
"...he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." (Jn.5:24)
What is the good news?
When Jesus says, "I am the way," He is not merely a Guide who came to show men the path on which they ought to walk, He Himself, is the Way to the Father. When Jesus said, "I am the truth," He is not merely a Teacher who came to reveal a doctrine regarding God,
He Himself, is the Truth about God.
"He who has seen Me has seen the Father." (Jn.14:9)
When Jesus said, "I am the life," He is not merely a Physician who came to invigorate your old life or to refine or repair your defects, He Himself, is life everlasting. Jesus said, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (Jn.10:10)
It is impossible to win God's favor by any efforts of your own, but the good news is that Christ came into the world to save sinners like us.
So What?
What does this mean for you now?
Since you are a sinner, this means that you are within the reach and mission of Jesus who came, not to call the righteous, but to call sinners.
If you know that deep within you, there is a deep-seated rebellion that you cannot cure yourself, look to Jesus. To look to Jesus means to believe in Him, or to place all of your confidence in Him to make you acceptable before God.
Call upon Him to be your actual Savior from sin.
"Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55:6-7)
"Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed." (Rom.10:11)
"Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Rom.10:13)