What is your reaction if I tell you Jesus is the only way to heaven? What if I pull out the big guns, tell you that Jesus said as quoted in the Bible, "I am the way, the truth, & the life. No one comes to my father except through me." There are really only a couple of reactions to this statement. First there is the reaction of those who trust Christ as their savior that say, yes this is the truth. I believe this with all of my being. Then there is pretty much everyone else who says wow, isn't that a bit narrow, isn't that a little extreme, I mean the "only" way. Wow that is pretty harsh and even judgmental. And in the case of some Christians it is judgmental. It is flat black and white with no deep understanding and no compassion involved. This is truth end of story. If you go through Jesus you go to heaven if not you go to hell. No explanation, no understanding offered just this is it. It is exactly these type of Christians that give Christianity a bad name, that make people bitter and angry at Christians the world over. Let me explain it a different way. You work in a large building and you are sitting there at work and hear the fire alarm go off. You think sheesh, what a day for a fire drill. Now I have to stop what I'm doing, shut my computer down, and proceed with the rest of the sheep and hang out outside for lord knows how long and then I may not get my work done today. So you decide to work until the little safety patrol guy comes to your desk and tells you to get outside for the stupid drill. You work a few more minutes and suddenly someone does come up all red faced and tells you, hey didn't you hear the fire alarm? You have got to get outside. You grumble, shut down your computer and grab your sun glasses and keys and start towards the nearest exit, You hear the guy yell at you hey that is not the way. The safest path is posted right here, we've got to go this way. He disappears out a door and you look at him and think, wow is he hyped up about a stupid drill. You open the door that you originally were going to go down and step into the hallway. You think to yourself, man is it hot in here. You get down half a flight of stairs and smell smoke. Another half a flight of stairs and you see the smoke and it is really getting hot. You are thinking Holy crap man, it is a real fire. Now you panic and run full tilt up the stairs you just came down. You get back out onto the floor you were originally on and try to look for the dumb sign that marks the fire exits that the safety guy pointed out to you. By now you are freaking out, in your head you are blaming the safety guy for not spelling it out that there was an actual fire going on and letting you know the full situation. You think you have found the exit he went down and start down that set of stairs and it ends on the ground floor, but you are again smelling smoke and when you go to open the door to the first floor is it scalding hot and you figure at this point you are kind of screwed. You walk resignedly back up the stairs to the top floor again and as you exit the stairway you see the safety guy again and he yells at you with real fear in his voice. What are you doing, I thought you were right behind me, come on I will lead you out the only door the fire hasn't reached yet. This time you listen and you follow right behind him, you run as fast as you can down a hall, down three flights of stairs and get to the bottom. It is smoky and it is really hot but the safety guy opens the door and yells at you to go through that he is right behind you. You run down a really hot, smoke filled hallway but see the red exit sign and run to the door flinging it open and busting outside into the sun where all of your co-workers are standing back away from the building. You look back as you hurry to join them and you hear a scream and a loud crashing noise and realize the safety patrol guy didn't make it out in time. You think about running back into the building but just as you try to will your feel to move the fire department shows up and you think whew, they will save him. They go inside and drag out this body that barely looks human any more, more like a big charred mess of flesh and burnt hair and you stare stunned. He warned you with the alarm, he came up to get you and show you the right way to go, then he came back to get you and make sure you got out safe and because you didn't go the right way the first time he ended up dying for you, because you were too stubborn to realize the right door to go out in the first place. That is how Jesus is the way. We will go our own way almost every time even if someone is there telling us don't go that way. After we've exhausted every other possible way to go, after we realize that they weren't better, but worse off than we ever were before, then maybe we take the right door to the only way out. Now does that sound harsh or judgmental? Does that sound narrow or extreme?