Have you ever noticed that all of your quarters & dimes have rough edges while pennies & nickels don’t?! The fascinating purpose for this goes back to the days when coins were stamped in different weights to reflect the true value of the coin. To stop people from shaving the edges of the coins and then melting them into new coins, minters finally put ridges on coins made of precious metals so it would be easy to tell if the edges had been shaved off. No “get-rich-quick” shortcuts allowed here!
Let’s face it — we all love shortcuts. It’s like the kid who was told to clean his room but he stuffs all his things under his bed ‘cause he’s in a hurry; or our friend who tried to take a shortcut to Death Valley through a desert route – gotta love GPS! The shortcut didn’t work out and he eventually had to backtrack. Really – there is no shortcut to anything worth doing right. As someone once put it: “A shortcut is sometimes the longest distance between two points.”
Shortcuts – they can certainly be convenient, and for the most part they are quite harmless. But really – there are some things that we just can’t afford to shortcut – think diets, safety measures with equipment, or — our relationship with our Creator.
Many believe there are shortcuts to God. But Matthew 7 tells us this: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do.”
Donald Miller once quipped – “The problem with Christian belief – I mean real Christian belief, the belief that there is a God and a devil and a heaven and a hell – is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe.” No – it’s not fashionable because it’s a narrow way and most people want a shortcut – a broad way to God.
As one Biblical scholar put it, the broad way has all kinds of tolerance for sin. Every ‘man-made’ religious system is part of the scenery of the broad way – the easy way – the shortcut. But think about it – people often criticize Christians because we believe there is only one way to God. But, as a pastor once commented: “If God said there were forty-eight ways to salvation I’d preach and write about all forth-eight of them. But there aren’t.” Jesus said of Himself, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from Me.” No short-cuts.
Tiger Woods starting golfing when he was three. On the pro circuit he would hit as many as 1000 practice balls each day. There are stories of him practicing 14 hours a day, putting on the green for hours with bleeding hands, all the while he was number one in the world making 50 million per year. He would tell you in a heartbeat that he took zero shortcuts on his road to success!!
The trouble with short-cuts is that in taking one, there is a very real possibility that you might not reach your destination! They often don’t lead where you really want to go! (Think God) Buddha can’t lead you to God. Mohammed can’t lead you to God! None of the millions of Hindu gods can direct you to God, nor can Joseph Smith lead you to God!! Taking the ‘God shortcut’ can lead to a lifetime of regret. And actually – that shortcut will lead to an eternity of regret.
There’s an amusing narrative about a guy who was driving his aunt and cousins to Georgia from New York. When he got near Georgia, he was exhausted and started looking for a shortcut. He soon found one and left the main road for parts unknown. Soon enough he realized that he was on some type of road through the Smokey Mountain National Park.
It was three am in the morning, on a scary, narrow mountain road – no guard rails, and…by his own admission, it was the most terrifying drive of his life! Instead of doing 55 on the highway, he was now crawling at 15 mph with his family having a nail biting contest in the backseat. Shortcuts are just not always what they’re cracked up to be!
As Gary Busey once said, “If you take shortcuts, you get cut short.” This one is big – please don’t shortcut yourself out of a life with God! Selah!
Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org
