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.”
John 14:6

Jesus had finished explaining to His disciples that He would soon depart from the world and join the Father where He would prepare a place for the disciples to dwell when they pass from this life. Thomas then asked Jesus how we were able to know the way to this place.

Today’s verse is Jesus’ response to Thomas’ question and the response is both simple and daunting at the same time. It is simple–because God’s salvation plan rests only on His grace, given to us through the death and resurrection of His son Jesus. Put your faith in Jesus, and you shall live. On the other hand, it is daunting because we need to overcome our inherent drive to earn salvation based on our own merit while at the same time being bombarded by worldly philosophies that claim there are numerous paths to heaven, or worse yet, that God does not exist or there is no afterlife.

The consequence of sin is catastrophic: It separates us eternally from God. Yet God loves us so much that he provided a way to reconcile us again with Him, and He demonstrated this love by making the path simple and completely independent of us and our abilities. He did this by sending Jesus, who died for us while we were still dead in our sins. God did not institute some difficult system of regulations and requirements in an angry attempt to winnow us out of the running. He made it as simple as possible, with nothing required of us but belief and acceptance. Praise God for providing the truth and the way to the Father through Jesus.

Pastor Jeff Mericle