“To find the truth, you wouldn’t listen to just one voice (a picture of Donald Trump was placed here!) You wouldn’t believe just one story.”
So ran an ad for The Week news magazine recently.1 It highlights once more, just how outrageous the gospel is to the 21st Century Western mind-set entrenched in relativism (there is no absolute truth) and how scandalous are the exclusive claims made by Jesus Christ.
Spirituality
You find the older generation often expressing any personal belief they may have in terms of, “I have a faith, thank you. I believe…in my own way!” Whereas those younger will say something like, “I’m into spirituality but not organised religion” or “There are many paths up same mountain. Nobody is wrong.” There is the human heart an intrinsic fear of having anything or anyone having authority over us to set an agenda other than our own. And yet, this desire for autonomy is nothing new. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes shrewdly observed that “People imagine God to be as they themselves are”. In fact we can trace this desire for self-rule farther back – to a garden in Eden.
God in human flesh
Yet, it is out of sheer mercy that God himself has entered into his own creation and graciously declares, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.”2 Many religions will agree regarding the fact that every human is sinful and therefore separated from a holy God. But no other religious leader apart from Jesus Christ has claimed equality with God and to have authority to forgive sin 3 (the reason why the Jewish leaders accused him of blasphemy) raise the dead 4 and that he would return one day to judge the whole of mankind.5
Cross-shaped Gate
How strange that guilty, dying people should refuse such offers of mercy. Jesus still today freely invites anyone and everyone to come through an open door into the presence of God.
It is for this reason he died and rose again, ‘to give his life as a ransom for many.’6 Because of this he has all authority to say, ‘whoever enters through me will be saved!’ No crossed fingers needed – this is certainty. How great is the kindness of God in making things so clear. The way of repentance and total commitment to/reliance upon Jesus Christ may be the narrow way, but it is THE way, God’s way, and it is his way in the end that really counts.
It is not a personal opinion that matters,
but personal faith leading to a personal relationship
1 https://subscription.theweek.co.uk/tv-6free 2 John 10:9 3 Matthew 9:1-6 4 John: 11:25-43 5 John 5:24-29 6 Mark 10:45
slot 4d situs gacor hari ini toto slot toto slot situs toto link slot gacor slot gacor