THE JESUS WAY

“Thomas said to Jesus, ‘Lord, we don’t know where You are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (John 14:5-6 NIV)

Bible teacher E. Stanley Jones told the story of a missionary who got lost in an African jungle.  There was nothing around him but thick bush and a few cleared spaces.  He came upon a local village and asked one of the men if he could lead him out of the jungle.  When the native agreed, the missionary said, "Well, show me the way."  The African man responded, "Walk."  So they walked and hacked their way through unmarked jungle for more than an hour.  The missionary began to get worried.  "Are you sure this is the right way?  Where is the path?"  The man said, "Friend, in this place there is no path.  I am the path."

It is a jungle out there -- from pop culture to pop psychology, the path of life is overgrown with too many opinions and too little time.  It's hard to see the forest for the trees.  We need clear direction.  Jesus said, "I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).  Jesus walked in His Father's footsteps, illuminating a path for others who desire to find their way. 

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in “Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians” 

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JESUS OUR GUIDE

“’Lord,’ said Thomas, ‘we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’”  (John 14:5-6a)

In “A Slow and Certain Light,” missionary Elisabeth Elliott tells of two adventurers who stopped by to see her, all loaded with equipment for the rain forest east of the Andes. They sought no advice, just a few phrases to converse with the Indians.

She writes: “Sometimes we come to God as the two adventurers came to me -- confident and, we think, well-informed and well-equipped. But has it occurred to us that with all our accumulation of stuff, something is missing?”

She suggests that we often ask God for too little. “We know what we need -- a yes or no answer, please, to a simple question. Perhaps a road sign. Something quick and easy to point the way.

“What we really ought to have is the Guide Himself. Maps, road signs, a few useful phrases are good things, but infinitely better is Someone who has been there before and knows the way.” 

-- From “750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers, and Writers” compiled by Craig Brian Larson and Leadership Journal

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THE NARROW WAY

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Was Jesus narrow-minded? Well, in a sense He was. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount He said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

If Jesus was right about this, then He was being appropriately narrow-minded. He was being like parents who are narrow enough to insist that their children walk on the sidewalk and not in the street, or a doctor who limits his prescriptions to medicine that will actually help people rather than [a placebo that would do nothing or a poison that would harm them], or the airline pilot who restricts his landing options to that narrow path to life called a runway, rather than trying to put the airplane down in a cornfield.

You see, we really want narrow approaches -- as long as they are based on truth and point us in the direction that’s best for us.

Jesus gave us every reason to believe He was telling the truth, and that He loves us enough to lead us toward forgiveness, life and an eternity with Him.

As the apostle Peter said: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  C. S. Lewis put it this way: "One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness." 

-- Lee Strobel in “The Case for Christianity Answer Book”

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