8/19/13 – “JESUS IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE”

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

When you think about Jesus and all that scripture reveals that He is, there are many ways you can describe Him. Yet one of the most powerful statements ever made in describing Jesus was what He said here in John’s gospel. These three attributes not only describe the Lord Himself, but also reveal some key things in how we relate to Him and how these attributes can impact and change our life as well.

The first description Jesus gives of Himself is what Jesus had been discussing with His disciples right before He made this statement. He had told them He was going to the Father’s house and that He would prepare a place for us. Thomas responded to the Lord saying he did not know where Jesus was going and that the disciples did not know the way. Jesus declares in verse six above that He was the way.

This is powerful when you fully understand what Jesus was referring to. For us to experience the presence of God once again living in us, and for us to once again be one with God as Adam and Eve were before the fall, there had to be a change in man. Man with a sinful nature needed to be transformed so that he could once again have the holy presence of God united within him. Because of the blood of Jesus once you become born again you have had an absolute miracle take place in your life that many seem to overlook. You now have the presence of Jehovah God living on the inside of you! Do you understand how significant that is?

This means I am no longer without help. I am no longer separated from God. I have open access to the Father and all of His resources. I have His very Spirit living within me, which is a spirit of love, power, and soundness. A spirit that is filled with a peace that people all throughout the world search for and yet cannot find. Anyone born again who is not experiencing this peace and yet still trying to get peace through outward ways is looking in the wrong place. The problem for believers is they often don’t realize what they already have. The key is not just knowing these things, but in fact acknowledging them in your life.

Psa. 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! NKJ
Psa. 46:10 Let go of your concerns! Then you will know that I am God. I rule the nations. I rule the earth. GWORD

Because of the blood Jesus shed, He provided the way for you and I to have our old man completely cleansed of sin by giving us a new spirit. Now residing in you as a believer is love, joy, peace, the gifts of the Spirit, the power of God, the wisdom of God, and all that you need for His Spirit is dwelling in you. When we don’t take time to stop and be still, let go of all our earthly concerns, we don’t experience what is residing within us. You don’t need anything in this world to find true peace, for it cannot be found there. If you are born again just look within, for it is already there.

This is what I believe to be one of the most difficult things in our society for believers to do. To be still means you must quiet your mind and focus on your spirit within. God bears witness with your spirit. Where is peace going to come from? The Holy Spirit within you. Where is joy going to come from? Where is the love you desire going to come from? Where is the wisdom and understanding you need going to come from? It comes from the Holy Spirit, who is God, who is living within every born again believer. Jesus is the way that we come to know God and receive His presence within us.

Don’t say, “I don’t have time to quiet my mind, I have too many things to do?” Yet if you look at what people do everyday, there are many activities that are not necessities but instead things that appease our flesh in which if they dominate our time they actually become a type of thief in our life. They rob us of the opportunity to experience all the things we are searching for everyday, that are actually no farther away than your next breath. Jesus made the way for us to come back to the Father so we could have His presence residing in us once again.

John 8:31 So Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you live by what I say, you are truly my disciples.
John 8:32 You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Liberty is a powerful thing. In America we have liberty but it is often taken for granted. So it is in the body of Christ as well. Jesus Christ not only provided a way to the Father, Jesus Himself is also the truth that sets people free. Free from what some may ask? First and foremost freedom from deception. Think about how many people’s lives have been destroyed or at least adversely affected by deception. Deception robs you of freedom. Freedom from fear, pain, sickness, disease, and all that Jesus has died to give you.

Freedom as the saying goes is not free. Our freedom cost God something. Our freedom cost Jesus something. It cost Him His life on the cross. It cost Him being separated from the Father. It cost Him in being mocked, scourged, and then being hung on a cross before all to see when He had done nothing wrong. What I see that is often overlooked in the church is that it also costs us something as well. You see to know the truth you must live by the truth. To know the truth you must get to know the Word of God, which is Jesus.

This is more than just going to church, or just praying a prayer once in a while. When I fell in love with my beautiful wife after seeing her for the first time for me to get to know her and to continue to know her cost me something. It cost me my time, money, and a change of direction for my life. I would never have gotten to know my wife if I would not have changed the direction my life was going. So it is with Jesus Christ.

Notice in John 8:31 Jesus declares plainly that if you live by what He says you will be His disciple. It is in being a disciple of Jesus that you come to know the truth and in coming to know the truth (Jesus) that truth will set you free. A disciple is one who is a student of another who disciplines themselves to the teachings of the one discipling them. They don’t try to do things their way; they are focused on learning from the one who is training them.

Living by what Jesus said is learning who you are in Christ. As scripture teaches we have the mind of Christ. We are to put on the helmet of salvation. As my Pastor Dr. Barclay has always said, we need to think saved. In other words think the thoughts of one who is delivered, who is healed, who is victorious, and more than a conqueror. This is what Jesus has said about us. Truth frees us from the old way of thinking. Living by the truth means I am going to live my life by what scripture says that I already am. So everything Jesus said that pertains to who we now are in Him we should live by. This is where satan fights Christians the most because he knows this is where the real battle is won or lost. As a man thinks, so is he. The devil does not want us to live by what Jesus said; he wants us to live by what he says about us.

Matt. 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Matt. 7:14 But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Last but certainly not least Jesus is the life. The word life means the God-kind of life. That is a life full of God and therefore full of all that God is. Jesus declared this life; this Zoë life as it is called in the Greek language, is only obtained through a narrow gate. The way to destruction is wide and may go the way of destruction. They choose to live life in a way that is contrary to the truth they have learned. They instead choose the wide gate instead of the narrow gate. The word “difficult” in verse 14 is defined as “a confined way”. This is where there is quite a bit of misunderstanding because of wrong teaching in the body.

Simply put God has already established before we were born spiritual laws in the earth. He does not change, and He has already provided a way for us to obtain Zoë life. That way is narrow not wide. That way is Jesus, the Word of God. If we don’t take time to “lose our life” as Jesus put it we will miss out on true life. Losing our life means we can’t do things our way, we must learn to do things God’s way. This is not bondage nor are we earning anything from God. But if you want to experience the God-kind of life you are going to have to follow Jesus’ example.

When you choose this narrow way you are simply choosing to do life the way God intended. This narrow way doesn’t lead to bondage; it leads you to a life full of who God is and what God has for you. It is obtained by us walking out progressively what Jesus revealed to us of Himself. You must know Him as the way, the One who paved the way through His shed blood for you to be united with the presence of God. You must live by what He has said for He is the truth, and that truth begins to free you from deception. Finally He is the life, the God-kind of life, for as you lay down you life (way of doing things) you begin to find true life.

See You Again Next Week For More “Weekly Wisdom”

May God’s Best Be Yours!

Pastor Darryl Baker