How would you like to be all ready to fly to a lovely warm climate? Doesn’t that sound like fun, especially if it’s cold and snowy where you live! You have bought your airplane ticket, your suitcases are all packed with summer clothing, your money has been changed to the currency of the warm country, and your boarding pass is in your hand. At the airport they announce your flight number and also announce the city where this plane will land. Everything checks out okay. Everyone gets on the plane and finds their seats, and the plane soon takes off.
However, instead of landing many hours later, your plane begins to land much too soon. When you get off the plane, you find yourself in an entirely different place than you expected, and it is cold and foggy! Everybody gets off without a question, and you are wondering if this is some sort of joke.
This is just what happened to a young couple recently. They bought their tickets for a flight to Sydney, Australia, and after landing from a much shorter flight than they expected, they found out their travel agent had made a mistake. Their tickets had been prepared for Sydney, Nova Scotia, instead! Not only did it happen to this couple, it has also happened to three other people at different times. It seems these two cities can cause confusion in the travel business. So if you plan to travel on an airplane, it would be wise to check ahead of time to make sure that your ticket will take you to the right destination.
Have you ever stopped to think that you and I are traveling on the road of life? We are all on the journey from time to eternity—from this life here on earth to spend an eternity somewhere else. Many unreliable “travel agents” are promising tickets to heaven, where we all want to go. But the tickets they talk about are not what God’s Word, the Bible, says about reaching heaven as your destination. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Jesus is the only way to heaven!
Some of the unreliable “travel agents” will tell you that being a good person and doing your very best will take you to heaven. But the Bible says that isn’t true, because we are all sinners. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Psalm 14:3 says, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” And other unreliable “travel agents” will say that if you follow certain rules faithfully and do good works, this will earn you the right to heaven. But the Bible also says that you can’t get to heaven this way either: “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses [good works] are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). There is nothing wrong with good works and following rules, but they are worthless as a ticket to heaven!
For the couple that found themselves in the wrong Sydney, it ended well. They were treated kindly and later continued on their journey to Australia. But when you and I leave this earth, our destination is fixed and cannot be changed, so it is very important to make sure our passage is settled with the only perfect and dependable Travel Agent in this world—the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do, you will be sure to arrive at the eternal destination you hope to reach.
MEMORY VERSE: “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Isaiah 64:6
ML-02/20/2011