At the end of it all, the Gospel of Christ is this: God will
give you what you really want. If you want to be with Him, Christ broke through
the power of death and has Satan’s power bound and gagged. You no longer have
to be a prisoner to death. He made the way for you to be with Him, where
previously, it was barred by sin and the grave.
But if you do not want to be with God, he grants that as
well. Many people think it’s cruel that “God would send people to hell.” Let me
assure you, God does not send you anywhere, but calls you out of death and into
life. God does not send you to hell any more than the sun sends you inside your
home. The fact is simply that to be inside your home is to be out of the sun’s
rays, and to be outside of God’s presence is to be, in the strictest and undebatable
way, in hell.
But you now have the ability to be in the sun’s rays, fully
and freely. Many people complain that God is not very loving, because he does
not accept us the way we are, but demand that we change into what He wants us
to be. The sun must also be unfair then, because when I spend time soaking up
its rays, I too am changed. The fact of nature is that the power you spend time
with will change you. The things you love will always change you to be more
like them – this is why the things you watch and think about and listen to
should not be carelessly chosen. Over time, you always become like what you
love.
So this is the
gospel. We were in a room with no doors – a prison. Outside, the sun was radiant
and beautiful, but we could not enjoy it. We became pale and sickly, held
against our will. When Christ came, he walked into our prison, and made a door
in the wall for us to escape through. Like fools, we say that it is narrow
minded to believe there is only one door in the prison. But prisons always only
have one door.
So now, we are faced with a choice. Do we choose to stay or
do we choose to go? Once outside, you find that there are actual places to go in
the world. There are adventures and people and light and love. You will also
find that your time in prison has left you sickly and damaged, not fully able
to set out. But the first step is to walk out of the prison into the light of
day. After time, you will find yourself becoming changed. This is the Christian
idea of sanctification – it’s like a spiritual tan – the effect of spending
time in God’s rays.
So it is not unfair to say that Jesus is the only way to
God. What is unfair is to blame God for you not going anywhere, while you stay
inside the prison of your choosing.
