Archive Poster : January 2017
How do you find your way these days? Google or Apple maps? Which is better? For quite a while Apple Maps had Manly Beach located in the middle of Sydney Harbour! Speaking of destinations, have you noticed that no one argues anymore about which religion has the better directions for the future? In fact, it's become impolite to talk about heaven. Is it because, with so many different ideas, we don't want to argue? No, there have always been conflicting ideas about the after life.
It's more likely that the reason for awkwardness has to do with being thought silly. Now that our big ideas about life come mostly from scientists it can be a little intimidating when many of them don't believe. For example, back in 2011, while sharing his thoughts on death in 'an exclusive interview with the Guardian', the cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, 'I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark'.
But great knowledge of the physical world doesn't necessarily lead to great knowledge of spiritual or supernatural things. Just because scientists can effectively analyse and harness physical forces and matter doesn't mean they can be certain that heaven or God don't exist. After all, by definition, God must be outside the physical realm.
The Bible is clear, God won't let himself be found by human wisdom but rather only by Him choosing to reveal himself to us. One passage in the Bible tells us that in the past,
"God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."
The prophets of the Bible looked forward to Jesus coming. When he came he dealt with a terrible barrier preventing us from being close to God - our rebellion. By paying for human sin at the cross Jesus cleared the way for us to know God deeply - but not by any path.
Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Just like we need clear directions for getting to Manly Beach, so also, we need right, not wrong directions for getting to God. Jesus, who you can meet in the Bible is the answer.
Prayer: Dear God, help me to trust your directions for spending eternity with you.
Bible: "... in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son". (Hebrews 1:2)
