Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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During a break for our hard working Native American team, we took them to an action park. Many of them were attracted to the maze at the park. We love to capture team memories on video, so one of our guys managed to find a spot looking down on the maze to shoot some video. And, it's really pretty funny because everyone is running down these twisting passageways, hoping to be the first person to find the exit. Unfortunately, most of those passageways of course led to dead ends. So people are going full tilt, right into a dead end, hoping - even expecting - that this is the path that will get them where they want to go.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The End of the Maze."
Now, there's a much bigger, much more important maze out there these days - the one that offers all kinds of paths to get to God. If you're an honest seeker, sincerely wanting to experience God for yourself, to know Him here and to be with Him when this life is over, frankly, there's a confusing assortment of roads out there. But the Bible's warning goes like this: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death" (Proverbs 14:12). In other words, a lot of seemingly promising paths in the spiritual maze end in an awful dead end.
But maybe you've already experienced the disappointment of some spiritual roads you've traveled. They've left you still without peace - still without fulfillment. So you've gone on searching. The trendy thing to do today is to go to the "buffet" route spiritually - don't fully commit yourself to any one way, just try a little of each. Then there's the "any god is fine" approach that seems so open-minded, so desirable. But we don't believe that about treating disease - any surgery, any medication is fine. We don't believe it about mathematics - either your sum or my sum is fine, even though they contradict one another.
If you want to come to a location where I'm waiting for you, you can't come any way you choose to any location you choose. Only I can tell you how to get where I am. Only God can tell us how to get where He is. And He has. The God of the Bible is unlike any other god in the world. Every other god, every other religion gives us a way to go looking for him. Only the God of the Bible comes looking for us, and dies for the sins that we deserve to pay for, and then comes back from the dead, and lives inside those who belong to Him, and makes it possible for us to know right here and now that we're going to go to heaven when we die.
The God of the Bible is Jesus Christ who says in John 14:6, our word for today from the Word of God, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." He didn't say Christianity is the way - no religion is. The way that leads out of the maze; the way that leads to God's forgiveness, to personal peace and to heaven is the Man who died for every sin you have ever done and walked out of His grave to prove that He alone can give eternal life.
If you're tired of searching; if you're ready to find, Jesus is one step of faith away. Picture yourself at the foot of the cross where He loved you enough to die for you and tell Him that you want to be His from this day on. If you want a religion, go somewhere else. But if you want the relationship you were made for, well you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." And I would encourage you to go check out our website as soon as you can today, simply because a lot of people have found some practical help and encouragement and assurance there about belonging to Jesus Christ. The website is YoursForLife.net. Or if you'd like to just call and get my booklet Yours For Life, I'd be glad to send it to you. The toll free number is 877-741-1200.
You don't have to keep looking for God anymore. He's come looking for you, and His name is Jesus. And He is everything that your heart has been restless for.