Passport to HeavenSample

Many people have died trying to climb Mount Everest. Once, a man refused to surrender his attempt to the summit when the odds were clearly against him. Climbing at a snail’s pace through the “death zone” (8,000 plus meters in altitude) was a recipe for disaster: every breath a struggle, with snow blindness, frostbite, exhaustion, hyperthermia, and hypoxemia settling in. 

This man would soon join the graveyard of frozen and exposed corpses that litter Everest’s high landscape. Consumed by ambition and pride to reach the summit, he disregarded those who cautioned him to turn around and soon died. 

Relying solely on our own effort, the odds are impossibly against each of us to ascend to Heaven, God’s mountaintop of eternal life. The frozen corpses of unregenerate and restless souls litter the landscape of our lives. We’ve followed their path, en route to the same fate.

Some try to work their way to God and His forgiveness through rules, rituals, and regulations, while seeking the approval and glory of men. This is the harsh and unforgiving mountain terrain of works-based religion, which causes exhaustion and blindness. People who work for their own salvation are gasping for the life-sustaining oxygen of God’s true Word (which they often lack) while receiving, instead, the painful frostbite of sin’s wages.

Jesus offers a better way. In fact, He offers the only way. He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Working for eternal life brings exhaustion, fear, and death. Coming to Jesus brings rest, fulfillment, contentment, and assurance. “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:5). Come to Jesus! He delivers from death’s cold grip and breaths His warming love and life into our souls. 

Many have replaced the futile ambition of a works-based summit attempt with knowing Jesus. A personal relationship with Christ has become their fuller hope, larger dream, superior aspiration, and ultimate ambition. Jesus is the greater summit; He is rest for the weary soul. Jesus is enough!

Are you exhausted—trying to do life on your own, and in your own way? Or have you found rest through submission to and trust in Christ?