THIS IS HOW WE DO IT

John 14:6 (MEV)

“Jesus said to him, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through Me.””

A simple statement from the Son of the Living God. In this one statement alone, we (heirs of the Kingdom of God) have 3 basic instructions that give a clue as to just HOW important the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was in order to carve out a concrete path that WE have access and grace to walk within. Before we examine what this actually translates to us on the earth in the year of our Lord, 2023; let’s get some definitions down.

WAY noun.

1. A method, style, or manner of doing something.

2. A road, track, path or street for traveling along.

TRUTH noun.

The quality or state of being true.

LIFE noun.

1. The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter,

including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and

continual change preceding death.

2. The existence of an individual human being or animal.

Keep in mind that these are the agreed upon definitions as our modern English vocabulary presents to us, therefore, these definitions are most rudimentary and as such are easy to grasp the concept of as it applies to us on individual levels in our everyday lives. In John 14:6 (above) Jesus simplifies access to God (His Father and our Father) as being the result of these three understandings and applications. He is claiming to BE all three of these things and even further, He is claiming that in order for anyone to access a back and forth relationship with God, they must not only accept Him as their Lord and Savior, but they must also accept these three things as the only way in. That’s quite a claim! And just like ANY claim that is made, we must investigate it’s authenticity and hold this claim up to the light of God’s own words to verify and settle it in our hearts, once and for all. However, before we do, we must give a warning: ONCE WE KNOW THE TRUTH ON THE MATTER, WE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO ADHERE TO IT.

THE WAY

Throughout the gospels, we have example after example of Jesus making miracles happen. From time altering, to death cancelling, to sickness overriding, to multiplication that doesn’t make any mathematical sense and everything in between. His methodology and style and manner of doing things didn’t exactly stick to a script that is easy to follow. In His own words He said in John 5:19 (NIV) “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” This points toward a broader understanding of the relationship between Jesus and His Father in Heaven; this points toward our own understanding of our relationship of the same. And here we have our first KEY to unlocking our own full fledged ‘doing things greater than Jesus did’ type of relationship with God. Jesus couldn’t just run off and start doing things just to do them, God did them first and best and when Jesus could SEE those things that His Father had done, was doing and would do; He did the same and got results every time. Why?

Why did Jesus get results every time, and why do we seemingly get a mixed bag instead? Good question. See, the WAY isn’t just about the methodology, style or manner in which something is done. The WAY is equally about the road, the track, the path or the street by which we travel to get those things done. In other words just because we have all the boxes checked in our own personal lives, doesn’t mean we are now able to be the ones that God uses to get things done. We must also stick to the path that He guided and directed us onto. And incase we’ve been wondering, YES, sticking to the WAY is easy, and it's hard and through the grace of God it is something we CAN and MUST see all the way through to completion. The way that we do this is to SEE OURSELVES doing it and then DO IT. No matter what thoughts invade our head space and tell us that we are crazy. No matter what letters and official documents we get sent to us. No matter what the methodology is (which by the way, God is still ‘in the know’ about) that looks like all hope is lost. NO MATTER. Because it is a KNOW MATTER. The only thing that matters is WHAT WE KNOW. And if all that we know is what the WORD OF GOD SAYS, then THAT IS ALL WE NEED. Doesn't that sound way too simple?

THE TRUTH

Speaking of the WORD OF GOD, the TRUTH is in the middle for a reason. The TRUTH is what holds the two ends of these three parts together. It’s the cream in the Oreo. It’s the PB&J between the slices of bread. It’s the ice cream in the ice cream sandwich. In other words, IT’S THE BEST PART.

We, the people of God, need to get better at KNOWING the TRUTH. This isn’t so much about the ability to recite chapter and verse, as it is most assuredly about getting the TRUTH into our vocabulary, our every day speak, our every day thought life, our every day perspective; the TRUTH must become our GO TO for everything. As followers of Jesus, we must graduate from people who no longer ‘believe’ the TRUTH, so we can become people who ‘know’ the TRUTH, who ‘live’ the TRUTH, who ‘speak’ the TRUTH; who have the truth in us and who are to be found within the TRUTH. So how do we become such a tight knit TRUTH team? Well the first thing is a little on the nose, GET THE TRUTH IN YOU. Whether through reading God's Word or listening to God's Word being taught, the method isn’t important because we are all so uniquely different. The point isn’t to cram a lifetime’s worth of scriptures into our memory banks. The actual point here is that just ONE LINE from the LIVING word of God contains more revelation power and life than a decade of sitting in a weekly church service. His words are enough. The next thing is not so obvious, otherwise more people would be doing it, and yes, we are talking about DOING THE TRUTH. Wisdom and knowledge go hand in hand as we see in Isaiah 33:6 that “Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, and the strength of salvation; the fear of the Lord is His treasure.” As we have spoken about before, knowledge is what we know and wisdom is how we apply what we know. Both are essential in living our lives as God designed, made a way for and desires us to finally begin doing so. The application is simple, take everything in our lives right here and right now and lay it at the feet of Jesus. Offer it upon the sacrificial table and commit to taking that same knife that Abraham lifted over his son; ready to sacrifice as an act of obedience and application of that which God says are the things that are not as important as He is. This could mean tangible things or relationships, sure; but primarily (as these are most dangerous to us) this means our ways of doing things, our natural understanding of how the world works, our additions we’ve made over time to what the word says in areas of health, financial provisions, how to get ahead, our thought life, etc.

In other words, it’s time to start to KNOW the word and that EVERY PART of it is the TRUTH. John 8:32 (NOG) "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

THE LIFE

The word life is most interesting in this trio. As noted in the definition above, life is (in the simplest form) our existence. The fact that we are here. Simple and yet seemingly too short a story. But as we view this understanding through the eyes of John 14 (above) we start to see that we exist in Jesus; not because of Jesus, or by way of Jesus (although these are true) we exist IN Jesus. So what does this mean exactly?

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Galatians 3:26 (NASB)

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Establishing that we are IN JESUS, we must understand that in order to live out our lives as Jesus did, we must apply His formula for walking in the fullness of all that God set up for us and made possible to us through Jesus on the cross. The way, the truth and life becomes less of a ‘slogan’ and more of the answer to the question that we’ve been asking for ages. We think about our own lives and we ask ourselves does what we know to be ‘life itself’ line up with what John 10:10 (NKJ) refers to as it clarifies “The thief does not come except to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”; or are we still trying to give a description of the thief, the murderer and the terrorist to anyone that will listen to us?

In every moment of our lives we are living by either lack or lush. There are rare moments that we have both working at full capacity at the same time. Why? Because we see things either through the eyes of fear or the eyes of faith. When we live through fear we see the lack, the lack is so big to us that we think everyone else sees it this way as well. We can’t take our eyes off of the lack. The lack overwhelms us if we allow it to. But as we live a life of faith we see lush everywhere. Even in a dry wilderness we can see the lushness in those bits of greenery that can even push through the cracks in concrete. Through faith we read the word and we see ourselves living as Abraham and Sarah playing with their toddler; as King David dancing through the streets; as Daniel making friends with wildlife; and as Jesus who knew what was coming and who didn’t give away the ending, but rather He helped people, exemplified love to people, provided for people, taught people and introduced a lifestyle that He Himself made possible for us, all these centuries later as we take our places in the story line.

So now here we are in 2023, a few years removed from a global pandemic health crisis, when we were all acutely tracking the times that surrounded us with as much biblical significance as we could. All the way to nowadays, as many of us are still trying to get the lives we once knew back on that old track we once had. But what if we can't ever get back there? What will we do if our own versions of our ways, our truths and our lives never make it back to resembling that old something we once had? How will we then gauge our lives as being successful if opportunities to do so are no where to be found? If we sound redundant, it’s because we are being that way with purpose. The ONLY guarantee that we have in life itself (as we’ve all experienced first hand) are not death and taxes after all; this honor belongs SOLELY TO GOD. Soon and very soon the blinders that once fit us like a brand new pair of Gucci sunglasses, will be lifted and we (the followers of Jesus) will begin to see these TRUTHS in ways we haven’t yet been able to see.

Friends, we are here on purpose. We have the authority over all things, because God has given all things to us within our authoritative rights and under His ruling.

2 Peter 1:3 (NLT) "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence."

Luke 10:19 (AMP) "Listen carefully: I have given you authority [that you now possess] to tread on serpents and scorpions, and [the ability to exercise authority] over all the power of the enemy (Satan); and nothing will [in any way] harm you."

So incase we’ve been wondering, YES, it is all of us whom the Bible refers to as the heirs of God, the other half of the covenant with God, the conquerors, those He provides for, those who can do all things, and those for whom He makes a way. WE are the ones who will stand our ground and (as John the Baptist once did) prepare the way for His incredible return. YES, we are ready and YES we have time to ready all those who are in our world. Because this is no longer just what we believe, this isn't just what we hear in church services, this doesn't even have anything to do with the number of years we have under our belts with this Christian thing because, loved ones,

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT.