Is Truth What I Believe?
Hundreds of people sought Abraham Lincoln’s attention. Greed, lust for power, and hunger for the spotlight brought many people to the president. Lincoln, a keen judge of character, became skilled at exposing their hypocrisy and lies. A favorite method involved posing a riddle to the scam artist. Lincoln would ask, “If you call the tail of a calf a leg, then how many legs does the calf have?” When told the answer was five, Lincoln would respond, “The calf only has four legs. Calling the tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”
Many people claim there are different ways to get to heaven that are equally “valid.” They think as long as people are sincere in their beliefs, they can believe anything they want, and God will accept them. A Christian who owned a gas station near Chicago had a neighbor that insisted that any sincere, good person could believe what they want and then go to heaven when they die. One day the neighbor who was going on a trip stopped at the gas station and began to chat with the Christian. When they were through discussing “religious” things, the customer asked directions from Chicago to New York. The Christian who was trying to make a point answered, “Drive in any direction you want. As long as you are sincere, you’ll get there.” The neighbor said that cannot be right. The Christian said,” My point exactly”. Pretending that conflicting and contradictory claims can all be true doesn’t make them true.
No one has ever lived who is wiser than the Lord Jesus Christ. His words, when asked the way to God the Father’s house, were, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Head in any other direction, trust in the instruction of any other person, count on receiving eternal life in any other way and we will never arrive in the Father’s house in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is not merely an interesting or wise historical figure with a “personal opinion,” but the always-existing Son of God who came to save mankind from their sins. The Jewish people clearly understood His declaration of Himself as God when He said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). He said, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He was put on the cross, He paid for the penalty of my sins there by enduring God’s Judgment, He died and shed His blood, which “cleanse us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Then He rose from the dead, went back to heaven, and sent an invitation to us: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). The excuse many people today make for not believing on the Lord Jesus is, “Who knows what is really true?” The driver wanting to get to New York wouldn’t have been any more satisfied with the answer “Who knows?” than he was with “Any direction you want.” You can come only through Him to Heaven, to be saved from the judgment and the condemnation of the Just and Holy God on everyone that rejects Him and His gift of love. Will you respond to the Lord Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Lord and Savior Today?
