Two Ways, Two Path

by Sarah Wootten Corinith Missionary Baptist Church

I recently read a story about a man who had been caught red-handed. He slandered his friends and colleagues for years anonymously. When finally confronted with irrefutable evidence, the man refused to admit that he was wrong. After two hours of confrontation, he finally said that he was guilty of the accusations against him. Then today, I heard that a woman had committed a terrible crime, and the incident was caught on video. The evidence is clearly against her, yet she refuses to put any blame upon herself and deflects all responsibility.
I don’t know these people personally, but there are striking similarities in both situations. Neither of the individuals were acknowledging their obvious sins, and instead they focused their efforts on convincing other people of the lie that they were blameless. We are all like this in our sinfulness. We all think that our actions, words, and thoughts are right, even if it is obvious that we are wrong. Our ways seem blameless to us, just as Solomon wrote, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,” (Proverbs 16:2a, ESV).

There are two paths in this life – God’s path and mankind’s path. Man’s path has some appeal; there is the potential for fame, fortune, and earthly comfort. However, the ways of a man ultimately lead to wickedness, untruthfulness, and death (Proverbs 16:25). In contrast, God’s ways lead to eternal life, a life full of righteousness and truth. The choice should be simple to us. You give up sin for righteousness, death for life, and punishment for blessing. And yet, left to our own devices, mankind chooses man’s ways every single time. Our actions seem right in our own eyes (Proverbs 16:2). Why seek after a different path that goes against what we “know” to be true? We desperately need God’s grace to open our eyes.

The prophet Isaiah describes a day when people from every nation will stream to God’s throne. They will gather in God’s presence in order that “He may teach us His ways and that we might walk in His paths,” (Isaiah 2:3, ESV). We see the partial fulfillment of this prophecy already within the church. Every Sunday, millions of Christians around the globe gather together to learn the ways of the Lord. And within these communities of believers, we get a front row seat to watching one another turn from our own paths and walk along God’s path.

But we’re not yet the perfect picture that Isaiah describes. Even with all our seminaries, conferences, books, and Bible degrees, our knowledge of the Lord and His ways pales in comparison to how we will know Him one day (1 Corinthians 13:12). Although the Spirit is working immeasurably in believers’ lives, bringing about the fruits of the Spirit, we are not yet as we will be (Philippians 1:6).
Right now, true believers are in the process of learning to walk in obedience to His ways. We should rightfully pray along with the psalmist for God to cause His ways to be known to us and for Him to teach us His paths (Psalm 25:4). The Christian life is ceasing to trust in man’s wisdom in order to take up Christ and follow after Him. There is no such thing as a Christian who simply believes that the stories of Jesus are true, yet continues to live in his own way. That’s what the rich young ruler did, and Jesus made it clear that he would not enter the kingdom of heaven while continuing to follow his own wisdom (Mark 10:17-31). The only way to everlasting life is to follow in the path of the One who has gone before us, Jesus Christ.

Lord willing, when we begin again in 1 Corinthians, we will come to chapter 5 where man’s ways versus God’s ways are clearly at odds. What God says about marriage, divorce, lawsuits, and personal liberties is not what is reflected in the world around us. So before we begin the next section of 1 Corinthians, we need to ask ourselves a series of questions. Do we really trust that God’s ways are right? Are we ready to humbly leave our ways behind and follow after Him? Or will we continue to trust in the ways of mankind and reject the truth? There are two ways, two paths, each of which have very different endings.