One Way

ONE WAY

by Pastor Colette Toomer Cruz

Is there more then one Road to Heaven? This is a question I am asked quite frequently but more often than not the question is posed in this form: "Don't you think there is more than just one way to get to heaven?"

While in a conversation with one of my parishioners I was asked: "If God made hundreds of different colors and kinds of flowers and trees, and hundreds of different animals and birds and even different kinds of people- don't you think it strange that He would make only one way to get to Him?" I liked that question and her reasoning because it helps make the answer crystal clear.

Is there more than one road to Heaven? The answer is no there is not more than one road to Heaven. We must understand that God is omniscient and just what that means. Merriam Webster defines OMNISCIENT as 1: having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight

2: possessed of universal or complete knowledge. God in His ALL Knowingness foresaw every philosophy, thought and sin that would raise itself up against the knowledge of God and so Our Heavenly Father in His Infinite Wisdom , " spoke through holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" and proclaimed over 300 prophecies of His Son thousands of years before His birth. He knew of all the various and sundry so called savior/gurus that would appear through the annals of time and leave their marks as good men and wise men and as prophets and all those who would be their followers and proponents. So God in His Omniscience had His son proclaim amidst the chaos of choices and maelstrom of messiahs: "I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." It is as though our Heavenly Father was saying, "I knew you would be confused with all the choices-THIS is my Son and HE is the Way to me."

We must acknowledge that there were not just make-shift messiahs that had to be exposed but also opinions and philosophies.

The greatest philosophical threat to God's Word is our own opinion and God knew that our opinion - our way of thinking would be our god which is why Proverbs 14:12 states: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."

So often the Word of God is in direct conflict with our "way" of thinking, our opinion of what we feel is holy or acceptable or good, our "way" of getting into heaven. Then when comes the time to decide which "way" to choose for our lives from the throne we place our opinion on we have the audacity to choose our "way" over God's WAY. We think to ourselves,

" the way the Word of God tells me to handle this situation doesn't make sense