Have You Got the Right Directions?

Technology of the modern world can be both a blessing and a curse. When everything works as it should, it’s a blessing – when things go wrong, it’s something else. Take, for example the bizarre case of Sabine Moreau, a 67-year old woman from Belgium, who recently went on a two-day, 900-mile odyssey because her GPS receiver gave her the wrong directions.

She had intended to travel only 90 miles, to pick up a friend in Brussels, but she ended up driving all the way to Zagreb, Croatia, through Germany, Austria and Slovenia. Her friend found an alternate means of transportation and her family reported her missing after she was gone for 24 hours. Interpol found her by tracking gas purchases on her bank card.

Of course, this is not the only instance of GPS technology run amok. Last March, three Japanese tourists vacationing in Australia found themselves stuck in several feet of water, when their receiver directed them to drive into Moreton Bay to reach their destination on an island. In August, a man drove into an Alaska harbor, when his receiver directed him to “turn right.”

All of this has me convinced that I ought to just stick with the good old map and compass.

These stories have got me thinking about how much trust people invest in technology and how that trust is sometimes misplaced. Getting from “point A” to “point B” sounds like a simple enough task, but as we have already seen, it can go drastically wrong, when you don’t have the right directions. Getting from Earth to Heaven is equally challenging. It sounds like a simple task, but you can end up someplace you DON’T want to be, if you’ve got the wrong directions.

Man has devised many different ways he thinks will get to Heaven.

The problem with man’s ways of getting to Heaven is that they won’t get you to where you want to go. Jesus lamented, “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7). In the very next verse, He went on to point out that those who were “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” were also guilty of “laying aside the commandment of God.” When we disregard God’s Word, in favor of our own ideas, we make a mistake that is every bit as absurd as those who seem to disregard common sense and blindly follow their GPS receiver into a body of water, or a foreign country.

In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The only way to get to Heaven is the Lord’s way. If we are looking at any source, other than the Bible, we will not find the right directions. Instead of Heaven, we will arrive at the wrong destination!

Some may think that salvation by “faith only” or salvation by “works only” seems like the right way to go. But, as the proverb reminds us, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). The only way to be sure about the spiritual path you are taking is to compare it with what the Bible says. As the apostle Paul wrote, in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.”

The Bible teaches us how to be saved from our sins (Romans 10:17; Hebrews 11:6; Luke 13:3; Romans 10:9,10; Acts 2:38). It teaches us how to worship God (John 4:23,24; Ephesians 5:19; 1 Corinthians 14:15; 11:23-26; 16:1,2; Acts 20:7). It teaches us how to live faithful, Christian lives (Hebrews 10:25; Galatians 5:22,23; Ephesians 6:13-18; Philippians 4:8; 2 Peter 1:5-8).

Do not deviate from the path that God has set before us.

“And whatsoever things ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:17).