[421 words]
God created us as free moral agents. We choose the path we take in life, for good or for ill. While most of us relish our freedom, the down side is that we must take responsibility for the choices we make. I like the way Joe Fitch put it: “When you choose the road, you also necessarily include the destination.”
Most people give little or no consideration to the destination when selecting their path. Immediate gratification clouds our thinking. How much thought do you suppose the Israelites gave to their destination when they started down the path of idolatry and immorality? Even when the prophets warned them of captivity in Assyria and Babylon, the people scoffed. When it finally happened, God’s people found themselves being marched off to foreign lands with nobody to blame but themselves. They had unwittingly chosen their destination when they selected their path.
God had set before His people a clear choice: obey and live, or rebel and die. Through Moses, God pleaded with Israel: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life…” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Unfortunately, the people evidently thought they could walk the wrong path, but still arrive at their desired destination. It did not work then, nor will it work today!
Actions have consequences; causes produce effects. Sin results in eternal spiritual death (Romans 6:23). No one in his right mind would choose to go to Hell. Yet multitudes make that very choice by selecting the broad, easy way that leads to destruction.
Question: Do you want to suffer eternally in the lake that bums with fire and brimstone? What sane person would answer, “Oh, yes, definitely!”? Instead, we instinctively want to live forever. However, most people reject the narrow, difficult path that leads to eternal life; and in doing so, we reject the destination we claim to seek.
Just before Jesus was crucified, He told His apostles, “And where I go you know, and the way you know” (John 14:4). When Thomas objected that they knew neither where He was going nor the way, Jesus responded: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6). When we choose to follow Jesus, we choose the destination to which He leads (Heaven). Opting to walk some other path involves rejecting that beautiful home of the soul. Unintentional rejection, perhaps, but rejection nonetheless. What destination do you want? Have you chosen the path that leads to it?
Joe Slater
via Broadway Church of Christ
Campbellsville, KY