Do All Religions Lead to God?

How is this for an answer from a believer: yes and no. 

Now I’ll qualify the statement. All religions do lead to God much like all flying airplanes do land, eventually. Some do it when they crash. 

We will all come face to face with God, regardless of the “religion” we practiced here on earth.  “It is appointed unto man to die, and after that, the judgment”  (Hebrews 9:27).  We’ll all face God and will give account for this life, but many will find they are not prepared to answer or give account in a manner that God is willing to accept. 

Being “with God” -- having been led there -- is much like a marriage.  There is a reason why a great deal of the imagery of the Christian Church is pictured as “the bride of Christ”.  In being a follower of Christ, we become “the bride” that He will present to His Father God and ask that we be accepted “into the family”.

Unfortunately, many people have a religion that leaves out Christ and His central role as the only one who can present us to God.  “For there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:5). As God’s only Son, God’s perfect sacrifice, His is the only sacrifice God finds acceptable.  Coming to God and saying, “I was a good Buddhist, Shintoist, Atheist, Scientologist," or whatever-ist apart from Christ is like a person saying they are going to marry someone who hasn’t said “yes”.  God only says “yes” to those whom Christ presents as being “married” to Him in relationship. It is only in an ongoing, living, vibrant “marriage” to Christ do we find our heavenly Father’s acceptance. 

Relationship trumps religion every time.  I tell people that to get to heaven, there is a test.  Fortunately, it’s an open book test and we have the question God will ask.  “What did you do with my Son Jesus?”  To that, my prayer is that you might get Him [Jesus] who is the answer, or as the Jesus instructs us…”I am the way, the truth and the life.  No man comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)