A Way or The Way - Part 1

Our Wednesday evening Small Group continues our video Bible Study by Pastor Louie Giglio. He points out that we all have certain people in our lives that we go to when we want a good advice or recommendation. Confidants that we can ask about people, places and things. The reason that we talk to these people is not because we want to know what is good, but because we want to know what is best! Not an average opinion of what is good, but what will take us to the top.  When it comes to things that really matter (our physical, mental or spiritual health, our security, or our family), we get more exclusive with what we want. That is what we all want.

Giglio states that the Holy Scriptures speak to us in these terms. We were spiritually dead and there is only one way that could bring us back to life. There are all kinds of ways to talk about morality, society and religion, but there is only “One Way” that can bring us from death to life. The question today is whether Jesus is one of a thousand ways to God or is He “The Way” to God.

John 14:1-7 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. The Father Revealed

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

In John 14:5, the Apostle Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” This is the question that everyone on planet Earth is asking. Innately, most people believe that there needs to be “a way”, because they know that there is something beyond these four walls of this physical existence on earth. God wired us that way. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” There is something woven into the fabric of who we are that speaks to something that is greater than just what we can touch, taste, feel, hear and see with our senses. We long for Heaven and a restored personal relationship with the Lord, our God.

How can we know the way? Jesus responds in a beautiful, masterful and powerful way. Christ’s answer to whether He is “a way” or “The Way” to the Father in Heaven is very clear. Jesus’ motivation in the way that He answered, how He answered, why He answered and that He answered the question was to narrow the focus, so that the disciples and us could understand “the path” that we are asking for in our own lives in the process of thinking our way to a relationship with Jesus.

Let's continue this message on Jesus - the Way to Heaven" in the next post.

In Christ, Brian