down the mountain

A lot of people think that there are many ways to "climb the mountain" to reach Heaven. "Just do the best you can", many would say. "Nobody's perfect...God is grading on a curve and if you haven't been particularly horrible you should get in." Or..."No religion has a lock on salvation. There are many ways up the mountain to God...How can all the religions of the world be wrong except one?" On the surface it seems to make sense. The problem is the price of admission. If Jesus died for the sins of the world, it is through that death that reconciliation has been made possible. There is truly only one way up the mountain. But there are many, many ways that God comes down the mountain to find us. He is as diverse and unique in His understanding of how to find us and how to reach us as we have personalities, cultures and, yes, even religions. The Son of God came down, off the mountain, to reach us and to give us the ministry of outreach. The sentence of death that hangs over every human life finds its pardon in the One who came down to live in our midst and to take our guilt on Himself. Now we need to take that message to the rest of the world at the base of the mountain. It wasn't our work and it isn't our message but it was His love that compelled Him to come to us. The unique bond God longs to establish with people everywhere shows that He has many ways to come down the mountain.

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Romans 10:

⁵ For Moses writes that the law's way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. ⁶ But faith's way of getting right with God says, "Don't say in your heart, 'Who will go up to heaven?' (to bring Christ down to earth). ⁷ And don't say, 'Who will go down to the place of the dead?' (to bring Christ back to life again)." ⁸ In fact, it says,

"The message is very close at hand;
it is on your lips and in your heart."

And that message is the very message about faith that we preach

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blessings,

Rob Smith