No compass without a needle

 

A compass is a wonderful instrument. Take it out of your pocket and look at the needle- it will always point to due north. However you turn it or turn yourself, it points to north. If you’re walking in the bush and have lost your way, a compass is a wonderful tool to have and no batteries are required.

Imagine, however, if for some reason there was no needle in that compass. It would still have the same directional points on the face – north, south, east and west, but they would be meaningless. You could hold it up and say “I think this is north” and point north in one direction. If you turned around with the compass in your hand, north would be in another direction. It’s the needle within the compass that points to the north.

As Christians we have a moral compass. There is only one direction that we need to face and that is towards God. God is fixed, He is eternal, He does not change. What is the needle for this compass? A person, Jesus Christ, points to the Father. When we look to Jesus we see the triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three in One.

We live in a world that wants to pull us morally (or immorally) into all sorts of directions but when we know Jesus we know where we’re going. We know the best way to live. We know God through His word, the Bible, through His Son Jesus, and through the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit.

All around us there are people with a compass that has lost its needle. They are wandering in the wilderness. Satan has deluded them into thinking that the most desirable direction is self, not God. e. Without God there is no way to lasting peace and happiness, only transient gratification.

These people may be our workmates, family members, neighbours and many others that we meet every day. They need our prayers, fellowship, witness and Christian love. They need the joy of a compass with a needle.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14: 6