WHY JESUS: THE WAY

THE PRAYER         

• Find a quiet space.          


• Breathe deeply and recognise God with you in this moment.          


• When you are ready, speak to God about this time together.          


• After you've finished praying, go through the following passage a few times slowly and thoughtfully (preferably out loud).     


• Allow God to meet you in these words. 

Lord, I’m single-minded in pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt. Be blessed, God; train me in your ways of wise living. Amen. Psalm 119:10-12 (MSG)

THE FIRST READING

Read this passage slowly (preferably out loud) as you allow God to meet you in these words. Pay attention to anything God might be highlighting as you do.

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

RESPONSE

Take some time to respond (write down, draw, pray, etc.) to God’s prompting in the first reading of the passage. What is he highlighting and saying to you through this?

THE SECOND READING

Read the passage again (slowly and preferably out loud) through the “lens” of what The Spirit highlighted in the first reading. Listen for anything else the Spirit might be saying.

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

THE REFLECTION

So you’re human? Really? How do you know? How do any of us know? 

As our lives unfold on this pebble flying through in an infinite universe of time, space, and opinion, how do we really know what it means to be here at all? I think the truth is that we don’t. Not really. Granted, we’ve been poking around in the dark for as long as any of us can remember, fumbling for clues about things like origin, ailment, and cure (Where we’re from, why we hurt, and how we find healing). 

But, one look at what we call “human” today shows us just how desperately we have lost our way. We’ve followed the leaders of money, sex, and power, and they have taken us far from home. 

We still ache though. Deep within we long for something that none of these things can shake. And so it is that we keep searching. What we're looking for is a way back to ourselves.The sobering truth, however, is that there is no self to come back to apart from God. 

Like it or not, we are from somewhere. We didn’t make ourselves. Humanity was not our idea. We are God’s, and any hope we have of being fully human is found ultimately with him. When we forget this, when we try to be God for ourselves, we lose our way. 

Thankfully, God in his goodness has not left us to wander through the maze of our own rebellion alone. He hasn’t even given us an impersonal map expecting us to trace a path to freedom. No. His response is far more intimate than that. Seeing the mess that we have created, He steps into the maze with us, reaches out his hand, and asks us to trust him. 

To follow him. 

Jesus asks us to model our lives after his own, and in so doing, to discover what it truly means to be human. The miracle of Jesus certainly includes forgiveness of sin and the promise of heaven when we die, but that is just the beginning. 

The radical declaration of Jesus is that when we could no longer find the way back to ourselves, back to God, the way found us. And, the saving that he offers is about so much more than just a prayer and a waiting room till we die. It’s about friendship with God that changes who we are while we live. A friendship that reveals what it truly means to be human as we follow - in thought, word, and deed - the greatest human who ever lived.

In our age we are bombarded with many “ways”, all of them claiming to lead us to the good life. However, if we hope to live the story- if we hope to step into God’s intention for our short part of his eternal plan-we need to recognize that there are not many ways that will lead us there.

There is only one way, and his name is Jesus.