THE WAY
“Please, Father, show me the way!”
Have you ever made that request of God? I have, and to make a very long story short, it saved my life. When I made that request, I was led to a true saving knowledge and life-long partnership with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus.
As a child, I had been baptized in three different churches; each time was purely for show and what we now call being socially correct. I verbally said I believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but I had no idea what they meant.
Unfortunately, thirteen happened soon after. Girls, cigarettes, alcohol, and eventually drugs came along. They became my gods. I was thoroughly lost. I would have intervals of sanity, but Yes, I was saved and lost. Don’t be surprised it happens all the time.
When I hit bottom, I didn’t land on a feather bed. It was a momentous train wreck that I created. There was seemingly no WAY out, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. “Please, God, show me the WAY!”
For me, AA was the beginning of discovering the only WAY. Holy Spirit led me there right after that plea to the Father. A life of sobriety began then. Shortly thereafter Holy Spirit directed a moment when I promised Jesus that because He forgave my sins, I would serve Him every day of my life. That was thirty-nine years ago. The Way has kept me clean and sober all that time.
My wonderful sponsor and I discussed Jesus and His unimaginable love very early in the program. I revealed to him how, just before I found the program and Jesus, I had cried out to God and asked Him to show me the Way. He asked me to search the New Testament and count the times “THE WAY” appeared.
It might be fun to do your own research, but it appears at least five times in the book of Acts alone. Early “believers” were called followers of THE WAY.
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Jesus knew that it was lights out! He had just fed the Disciples the Passover meal and washed their feet. Jesus sent Judas to “quickly” rat Him out.
In the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, He tells them that He is going to leave them and that where He is going, they can not come now but will come later.
In response, Peter began a series of big fat lies.
“Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’ Peter said, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? (Here comes big fat lie number one) I will lay down my life for you.’ ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow before you have denied me three times.”
(John 13:36-38)
Peter continued, as did all of the disciples, to view circumstances and the world through the lens of their flesh eyes even as they lived with The Holy Spirit, God in the flesh. Peter tried to convince Jesus not to surrender and die. He reacted with violence when the Temple guards came to arrest Jesus by lopping off the ear of Malchus, the servant of Joseph ben Caiaphas, the chief priest of Israel. Jesus repaired the ear and rebuked Peter for using his sword.
(Luke22:49-51)
Jesus gave Peter three opportunities to make good for denying Him at the sea of Galilee after He had risen from the dead. Peter confirmed His love for Jesus three times.
Then, even after Jesus had commissioned all of the disciples to go into ALL THE EARTH and teach the Gospel, all of them, including Peter, refused to go because they believed that teaching Gentiles was a sin.
(Matthew 28:18)
It took the voice of Holy Spirit telling him not to call anything that God has called clean unclean, and a visit from an Angel Of The Lord to convince him to go and teach the Gentile Cornelius the Gospel.
(Acts 10)
The other disciples were shocked when he reported that the Gentiles had received the Gospel even though they had been with Jesus when He taught the Gentiles at Jacobs well. Why? They believed what they believed more than what Jesus had taught them, regardless of Jesus proving His Words and guaranteeing them with His blood. (Acts chapter 10 and John Chapter 4)
The Jews, including the disciples, wanted Messiah to be a warrior king who would smite the Roman empire and dislodge their counterparts, the corrupt power and money-mad rulers of the Tempel. They did not want the world changed by Truth, Grace, Mercy, Love, Patience, and Peace. They wanted a violent and immediate overthrow laced with vengeance and reprisals for their pain and suffering; they wanted to be the super race of their time and to heck with all of the filthy Gentiles. That is why they wanted Barabas, the violent Zionist, to be freed and Jesus to be crucified.
Jesus’s life and Gospel rocked their minds and shook their core beliefs. It wasn’t until Holy Spirit invaded their hiding place ten days after Jesus had returned to His throne and opened their Spiritual eyes that they began to understand and believe Jesus. Even so, it took the Cornelius incident in the tenth chapter of Acts for them to see that Gentiles were capable of believing and worthy to receive the Gospel of Jesus.
(Acts 2:1-4)
And what of us? Our flesh and the voice of the evil one, that negative voice that leads to destruction, battle against the teachings of Jesus, and our hearing His voice. Circumstances and the vicissitudes of life cause us to react in our flesh like the unbelieving disciples instead of first seeking His Kingdom and Righteousness when the correct answer is always to listen to THE WAY!
Back to Jesus teaching the disciples about His pending departure:
“Do not let your heart be troubled (afraid, cowardly). Believe in God and trust in Him; believe in Me also. In My Father’s house, there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again. And I will take you to Myself, so that where I am, you may also be. And where I am going, you know THE WAY!”
Pay attention to this next scene. “Doubting Thomas” is about to react to Jesus’s Spiritual pronouncement with a flesh statement. Of course, we do this frequently as well.
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, so 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 BUT BY ME!
Jesus is THE ONLY WAY, THE ONLY TRUTH, AND THE ONLY WAY TO ETERNAL LIFE WITH HIM!
Whatever the question, His WAY and TRUTH are the only answers. That is precisely why He taught us that unless we consume His Words, believe them, and act on them, we have no life in us. The flesh, which the disciples and we frequently. THE WAY has overcome all and whatever tribulations appear in our lives.
HERE IS WHY JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY AND THE ONLY TRUTH AND THE ONLY WAY:
“In the beginning was THE WORD, and THE WORD was with God, AND THE WORD WAS GOD!” Jesus is THE WORD. (John 1:1-3)
“IF YOU HAD KNOWN ME, YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN THE FATHER; FROM NOW ON YOU KNOW HIM AND HAVE SEEN HIM!
(John 14:7)
It took the disciples a long time, if ever, to understand and believe that Jesus was indeed God in a flesh body, and therefore, everything He did, everything He said, He did and said as GOD ALMIGHTY! AND THAT IS WHY JESUS IS THE WAY!
This message is just a snippet of the big picture of the most powerful act of love ever committed. Because of time constraints and other reasons, some nefarious religion has truncated the Resurrection Story.
The report is featured in John’s Gospel from the thirteenth and twentieth chapters and in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark. All believers must drill down on this most essential part of the Gospel and receive it. Why? To learn the complete investment that God in the flesh made in them personally because of His infinite love for them, regardless of their behavior or lack thereof.
END OF TEACHING
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