Mind the gap: How the London Underground's simple warning can help us find our way to heaven

"Mind the gap."

British trains broadcast this recorded warning to passengers about to board, reminding them to avoid stumbling into the space between the station platform and the train.

The Bible explains how this one act of sacrificial love built a beautiful bridge over that infinitely large gap between you and your Creator.

But there’s a much bigger gap — a bottomless chasm of a gap — that we also desperately need to mind.

It’s the gap between us and the wholly holy God who made us.

I know. You don’t believe in a “sky daddy.” Or you do, but you prefer to avoid thinking about the ramifications of being a creation and not the Creator.

Either way, you know that you’re broken. Perhaps you rationalize your unhappiness by telling yourself the fiction that we are all just random bits of tissue, evolved from primordial ooze.

But telling yourself there is no meaning to life does not mean there is no meaning to life. You’ve just not grasped it yet.

And you can’t. Not on your own.

But again, that doesn’t mean the answers are not there. You’re just reluctant to look in the right place.

The answer you don’t want to hear

Yep, it’s the Bible. The beautiful story of who created you, and what He created you for.

Of course, you could start by just looking around — at the magnificent beauty in the world, at the unfathomable greatness of the cosmos, of the meticulously designed intricacies of the human body, of the irreducible complexity of the tiniest organism — and ask yourself honestly, is this really all random?

The people who insist that is the case are the most effective gaslighters in history. Because you’re being gaslit when someone tells you to ignore what you can plainly see with your own eyes.

And when you open your eyes to that, you have to wrestle with the existence of a Creator. And that’s when you should consider opening that Bible.

It explains how a loving, wholly holy God created people, not robots. They were and are free to choose. The first people chose wrong. Like we all would have, had we been the first. God was not surprised by this. After all, He’s God. He had a plan all along.

Why did He choose to do it this way? I don’t know. I’m not God. Neither are you.

But as He is holy and perfect and we are not, doing wrong put a permanent, uncrossable, gaping chasm between Him, the holy, and us, the unholy. We don’t have a way to reach Him.

And yet — He created us to be in relationship with Him. That’s a longing we all have, to be in relationship with our Creator, but we stifle it or tell ourselves it’s nonsense until we can’t even hear the little voice that tried to point us in the right direction.

The good news ...

And now we come to the good news, or gospel (which literally means "good news" in Greek). This part is in the Bible too, as it was, as I said, God’s plan all along.

Jesus, who is God, came to Earth. He allowed Himself to be crucified. And He rose again, as was witnessed by hundreds of people. He is alive now. He is still God.

The Bible explains how this one act of sacrificial love built a beautiful bridge over that infinitely large gap between you and your Creator. Your broken relationship with God has been permanently repaired.

So all that’s required to mind the gap is to access that beautiful bridge.

And that’s really quite simple. The Bible shows us the path, countless times.

In Acts 16, we’re told that the authorities had jailed the apostle Paul and his companion Silas for preaching that gospel, and God miraculously caused an earthquake to break open the jail doors and unshackle the prisoners. The jailer awoke, saw the open prison doors, and drew a sword to kill himself, believing his two prisoners had escaped. But Paul yelled to him that they were still there. The jailer rushed in: “And trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' And they said, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved'” (Act 16:29-31).

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. That’s it. Faith in Jesus as Lord means you are saved from eternal separation from the Creator (hell) and rightly aligns you as who you were created to be.

Simple, but rich with meaning. Note the language. We are to believe in the Lord Jesus.

... and how to take it

Consider also (boldface mine):

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

"If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

Many beliefs move a person closer to God. Acknowledging that there IS a God is a start. So is acknowledging that Jesus lived, died, and even rose again. But you can intellectually come to believe the second part of that passage (believe God raised Him from the dead) without confessing Jesus as Lord — because if someone is your Lord, by definition you submit to Him.

Make no mistake, God is already in authority over you. But He doesn’t force anyone to submit to Him. As James points out, even the demons know that Jesus is God, but they don’t willingly submit to Him (James 2:19). You have been granted the same freedom to reject Him as Lord and be your own god.

Millions choose that path. But the fact is, there is only one bridge to God — that bridge forged by Christ’s loving sacrifice on the cross.

RELATED: 7 ways to know if you're saved

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Only one way

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me'” (John 14:6).

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Don’t be misled. Any path that doesn’t involve walking over this bridge will not mind the gap. It is instead a path that will leave you without God for eternity.

It’s so easy to take a wrong turn. That’s why the gospel is such good news, that fulfills every need you have with a plethora of blessings.

What prizes await

When you accept the free gift offered through faith in the Lord Jesus, His grace transforms you.

And that moment of transformation is YOUR life’s pivot point. Kind of like the best Christmas morning you could ever have, because all at once you get to unwrap all these gifts:

• The gift of faith, as we are granted the ability to believe the truth.

• The gift of repentance, as we begin the pivot away from our old life (aka, begin to sin less).

• The gift of justification, which means our accounts are settled with God. The price has been paid for every sin we have ever committed or will commit. Paid in full. Done. (Spoiler: Christians will still sin. See “sanctification” below.)

• The gift of salvation, as we are welcomed into His eternal family and rescued from the domain of darkness. We are now His children.

• The gift of relationship, as we are granted personal, unquestioned access to the God of the universe (in the Old Testament, only the high priest could access the “Holy of Holies” aka God; now we all can, as we are welcome to pray at any time).

• The gift of the Holy Spirit within you. God comes to live in you.

• The gift of sanctification, which means we will grow more and more like Him as we learn more and more of Him through His word. And the more we are like Him, the more we will burn with a desire to do for Him whatever He has gifted and called us to do. We are invited to come alongside Him and build His kingdom, which is the greatest adventure any of us could undertake.

So now you know how to access the bridge that will mind the gap, once and for all.

Whether you take that path is the most important decision of your life. God will not force you into His presence. But in His love, He has provided a simple choice you can make to live with your Creator now and for eternity.

If you choose wrong ... mind the gap, my friend.