Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - The Most Important Question About the Road You're On - #6043

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

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Every time I go to an airport, there are a lot of planes to choose from. Sometimes I walk past dozens of gates and planes to get to one plane at a faraway gate. Sometimes I get on this little "puddle jumper" plane when I'd, of course, rather be onboard a big, sleek aircraft. I don't get on the first plane I see, or the one that's the most convenient to get to, or the one that looks the most comfortable, or the one that looks best to me. No, I pick which plane I'll board based on one simple factor - its destination.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Important Question About the Road You're On."

There are lots of planes at that airport that will give you a nice ride, but they won't get you home. The question that decides which plane to board is pretty straightforward: "Will this take me where I want to end up?"

Nowhere is more riding on that question than when it comes to where we will spend eternity; especially at a time when our culture offers a confusing spiritual buffet to choose from. Many religions are seeking our allegiance in this growing marketplace of spiritual options. And there are countless alternatives to conventional approaches to God; approaches that allow you to develop your own personalized spirituality. Whether your way to God is a traditional religion or a non-traditional spirituality, it's important to ask the only question that really matters: "Will this take me where I want to end up?" Not "Do I like the way this makes me feel?" or "Shouldn't I follow the religion I was raised in?" There are some beautiful roads that don't lead to heaven. There are some spiritual systems that will, like that wrong aircraft, give you a lift but won't get you home.

God's made it very clear in His best-selling book, the Bible, that there's one way to end up in His heaven when you die, and it is not a religion. It's a Person. In 1 Timothy 2:3-5 , our word for today from the Word of God, He says: "God our Savior...wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men." Why just one man who can be the go-between to get us to God? Because there's only one man who "gave Himself as a ransom for all men."

A ransom is the price you pay to get someone back. The price to get us back was the death of Jesus Christ for the sin that separates us from God. A religion, a personal spirituality can make us feel spiritual, even close to God, but it cannot pay the death penalty that we carry because we've de-throned God in our lives to run it ourselves. It took what Jesus did on the cross to do that. Only the man who died for your sin can remove your sin. If you die with your sin unforgiven, there's no way God can let you into His heaven. Even Christianity, the religion that's about Jesus, can't get you to heaven. It's Jesus! In the powerful words of Acts 4:12 , "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

The only way to get to heaven is to be totally depending on Jesus Christ to get you there. It means abandoning all other hopes of getting to God and to heaven and fully trusting the one way God provided - Jesus, His one and only Son. If you've never reached out to Him and given yourself to Him, you're in grave spiritual danger, no matter how sincere you may be in whatever else you're depending on. You can be totally sincere in your belief that a certain plane will get you where you want to go, but no amount of sincerity can change the fact that it just won't get you home.

When you open your heart and your life to Jesus, you know in your soul that this is finally the real thing because Jesus is there now. I pray that you will tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." At our website, there's a brief explanation of just how to begin your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You can listen to it or you can read it. Just go to YoursForLife.net.

Jesus paid your passage to heaven with His life. That's how much He loves you. Go with Him today, because He is the One who can get you home.