For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. – Ephesians 2:18
After arriving home from a recent journey, I tried to recover from my jet lag by reading a book. It was written by Stephen Ambrose about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and it had a very interesting title: Nothing Like It in the World. I thought, That is quite a declaration! I realized it was probably an overstatement, but the project still must have been quite an undertaking.
The Transcontinental Railroad connected the existing Eastern and Western railroad networks, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts by rail for the first time. This drastically transformed life in the western states. The project was completed on May 10, 1869, when an Eastern representative and a Western representative met in Promontory Point, Utah, to drive in the final spikes. At the time, I am sure they felt like crying, “It is finished!”
There is a parallel between this historical event and the story of our salvation. “Nothing like it in the world” would rightly describe how Jesus came to earth to make our redemption possible. He ushered in the dispensation of grace, transforming our relationship with God and our access to Him. The nails driven into Jesus’ hands made the way for a connection between mankind and God, and on that Good Friday evening, Jesus could finally say, “It is finished.”
Truly there is nothing like it in the world when an individual comes before the Lord and finds the way to salvation, which opened when Jesus died on Calvary. In fact, when we come to Him in prayer, we find that there is a way through any problem. Just as the new railroad allowed goods and supplies to travel quickly across the continent, through Jesus we have direct access to God, and He is able to meet every need of the human spirit.
In all the world, there is nothing like the privilege of coming to God in prayer—and that is not an overstatement. Heaven’s treasures await each one of us when we humbly come before Him.