September 15, 2007
Newsletter Archives

On my wife’s school bus route, beginning the 19th, she has been notified there will be a detour for a month due to a culvert being replaced. And this means an inconvenience because it disrupts the bus stop schedule. No-one likes detours. At least, most of the time we don’t!
Yet there is one detour people always try to take. Strange too, that this is the one place where there is none. When it comes to getting into heaven, people would like to by-pass the cross of Christ. It is not possible to detour around the cross, however, and arrive at the right destination. To get to heaven we have to go through the cross of Calvary. There is no alternate route.
People try to pray their way into heaven; they try turning over a new leaf, or working hard at community service. They try a thousand things and all of them are good, but not one of them is the highway to heaven.
Sin blocks the road to heaven. But the death of the Lord Jesus takes away sin and removes the roadblock. Only those who trust Him for the removal of their personal guilt and sin are traveling the right direction to heaven.
The apostle Peter stated it so clearly. He said, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God….” 1Peter 3:18. The Lord Jesus is the route to God. His suffering for sin “paves” the way. He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” John 14:6.
There is no detour. If we try an alternate route, we will wander down wrong roads and ultimately be lost forever. Here is the one time the direct route is the one to take.

Russ Nesbit