Only One Way.

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

So many times, we try to over-complicate things.  I think, these days, it's because it's hard to believe something can be so simple as the Gospel message.  How could God love us so much that He sent His son to become a sacrifice for our sins?  How could Jesus love us so much that He gave up heaven and all the authority He had to come to earth as a baby born in a stable in Bethlehem, only to face the cross?  How could it be just as simple as admitting to the God who knows everything that we are sinners in need of a Savior and accepting that Jesus paid it all on the cross for us and by believing on Him as Lord and Savior, we get to spend eternity with him?

And yet, it's as simple, and as complicated as that.  

I think a lot of people believe in their heads that this is true.  They understand who Jesus was, what He did, and that He was resurrected from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.  I always thought I believed those things, but I surely didn't live like I did.  I had my own ideas about God that were not right and it wasn't until I messed my life up with all that fuzzy thinking and my own notions about God.

I was in a class today and learned about God's justice.  My idea of justice was that of lady justice and I would be judged on the things I did in life and if the good outweighed the bad, then I got to heaven by being a "good person".  I was anything but a good person.  And as I read the Bible for the first time in 45 years, it began to dawn on me I had absolutely no clue what I was doing or even what I believed.  I think if someone had told me to read the Gospel of John first, I might have avoided (probably not, it was early and in those early days of being a believer, I thought being a Christian meant having some head knowledge about the things I mentioned above and going to church on Sunday and throwing a few bucks into the plate.) some of the unpleasant experiences I had the first year or so.

By the time I got to the end, though, I had a pretty good idea that my ideas of good and bad, of justice and mercy and grace were all garbage.  That way of thinking had me headed for a date which ultimately would wind up having me cast into the eternal lake of fire John wrote about in Revelation.

I did nothing on my own to earn my salvation.  God offered me a better way when I was at a tipping point in my life.  He found me in my brokenness, He offered me a different path, and when I finally had some heart knowledge that what I thought in my head was true was actually true and REAL, and I accepted that gift, my life started to change.  Two changes were immediate.  The rest have been a progression of things to work on, tests to come, some epic failures on my part, and God's grace, forgiveness, chastisement,, and love all working to make me a different person.

It's tough to admit sometimes that what we thought was truth was a lie.  It's tough to admit maybe we didn't understand what we thought we knew, or refused to believe, at the expense of thinking we knew better.  In my case, God had enough of me, and He did what it took to bring me to the place where I understood what I believed about God was what I needed right at that moment.  The Holy Spirit did the softening of my heart, I saw the words that brought me to my knees, and Jesus found me right where I was.

How about you?  Still believe you believe in Jesus?  Let me ask you this:  When was the last time you read your Bible?  Went to church?  Prayed?  Confessed your sins to God?  Or are you still stuck on I believe in God and I'm a good person?  Or still treading on earning your salvation with good works, when Jesus clearly says that He is the only way?  

I hope the verse today gives all of us pause, to remember the words of the Risen One and remember that the only way to the Father is Jesus!