Oct
26
No Middle Ground
Filed Under Devotional
It’s curious to me how most people will project their idea of fairness or justice into different situations. Think about your average wildlife documentary show. The narrator is describing the lifestyle of some particular critter. He talks about how it finds food, how it reproduces, and where it lives. Invariably, the story turns to how it escapes predators.
It always seems that, whether we mean to or not, we immediately find ourselves rooting for the critter in question. We want him to escape the predator. We want him to outsmart him or outrun him. If he doesn’t, we feel as if something unfair has happened. We try to apply our idea of justice into this brief snapshot of the universe. We want to override the truth of nature and how life interacts. We sometimes even find ourselves shaking a fist at laws of science, because they don’t seem fair.
It doesn’t seem fair that an astronaut can train for years and years and, with one small mistake during a spacewalk, he can be dead instantly. The laws of science and nature do not ask our permission before they act. They simply are.
This is the best analogy I can give to those who would argue that there are many ways to God or those who believe that God will save anyone as long as he’s sincere in whatever belief he’s chosen (By the way, being the most sincere was the goal of Linus in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. That’s not what I would consider to be a foundational source for any faith). Our skewed sense of justice does not apply to God. Just like wishing that all critters could avoid their predators or wishing that small mistakes wouldn’t result in grave consequences, wishing that God would follow our rules won’t happen.
It seems rigid and uncaring to say, “I don’t care how hard you are trying or how much you believe in your faith. It won’t work.” However, these aren’t rules we can change. They just are.
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ ” John 14:6
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Timothy 2:5
This is truth. This is not negotiable. You can choose to tell the truth or an untruth. There is no comforting middle ground.