Latest / The Daily Word / August 12 – The Way, the Truth, and the Life
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whenever you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey, and it is my privilege to serve as the campus pastor at Arkatawa Campus. I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode. We're going to be doing a devotion out of John chapter 14. And Surprise, surprise, here we have another one of Jesus' seven I Am statements from the Gospel of John. Another picture of who Jesus is that he gave us as a way to understand him, understand the God that we serve and recognize him for all that he is. Now, chapter 14 begins right after. Jesus has announced to his followers during the Last Supper that he will be leaving them soon. Now we can all imagine like the blow this must have been to them, right? Like it must have really sucked them in the stomach. And just like you and just like I would, they immediately start asking Jesus questions. Questions like, You're you're you're leaving us. Well, where where are you going? Well, I'm I'm going to a place that you can't go now, but you're gonna follow me after. Well well that's another question. How will we know the way? And Jesus answers that in verses six and seven. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. And from now on you will know him. And have seen him. Now, when Jesus said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, he wasn't saying that he was a way, a truth, and a life. No, he was very clear in the original language that he is the on all of those. He is the only way, the only truth, the only truth. Life. He is the way to get to where he is going. He is the source of all truth, and he is the source of all life, both physical and spiritual, both on earth and eternally. Now I know that that's not like big shocking news to anyone who's in relationship with Jesus. It's kind of Christianity 101, but despite that, we often seem to kind of lose sight of that in our daily lives. Like sometimes we forget the fundamentals, and something small in our life can cause us to completely forget all those things that Jesus has taught us and run and cling to something else. And we have a very real enemy who works very hard and To get us to accept counterfeit versions of who Jesus is and what he wants to be in our lives. He comes with counterfeit versions of the way, the truth, and the life. See if this sounds familiar. How often does Satan come and whisper to us that we need more than Jesus to get to heaven? Or to live in relationship with God on earth, to have righteousness here. And how often does he dangle good works in front of us, whispering in our ears appeals to our knowledge of good and evil to entice us to base our worth upon goodness instead of upon Jesus and who Jesus has made us to be? How often does he come and he bring brightness bold flashing signs in front of our eyes to tell us to believe another truth other than the truth that Jesus has given us. The truth perhaps about our circumstances or maybe what someone else has said to us that is in opposition to the word of God. And how often does he come to tell us about all the things we need to have a good fulfilling life? How often does he Array dazzling displays all the worldly goods that he can provide in front of our eyes to get us to turn to them as our source of life instead of to Jesus. Now the enemy is just tricky. He is tricky, and he knows the weakness. Points in all of our lives. He knows the areas that we're actually clinging to something besides Jesus, even when we don't recognize those things. And he comes in opposition to us. So how often can we recognize those things when they come along and actually use them to cause us to cling to Jesus more tightly than ever before? When we encounter pressing, when we encounter trials, when we encounter struggle. We're actually given opportunities through those things to recognize things that we've never seen in our own lives before and recognize the areas where subconsciously Jesus is not our way, truth, and life. Something else is. And where are you today? Has there been anything that's happened recently that you can look at now with hindsight and say, you know what? I can see where the enemy was trying to get me to cling to something else, to establish something else. Maybe not as as taking Jesus' place, but but you know, kind of being next to him, kind of, you know, just just helping him out like like he needs any help. Are there any areas like that in our lives? If there are, let's recognize that Jesus is not a way, a truth, and a life. He is the way, truth, and life. The only And he needs no assistance, he needs no help, he needs nothing else standing beside him. And if anything actually is standing beside him, we have given that thing a place in our life that it ought not have, and we have turned it into an idol that needs be torn down. It's with that recognition that let's turn to the Lord together and let's pray. Father, I just thank you. I thank you for sending Jesus. I thank you, Jesus, for your truth. I thank you that you came and you taught us to cling to you. You showed us that you are the way to eternal life. You are the way to the Father. You are the way to where you are going, the kingdom of heaven. You are the truth. You are what we can base our life upon. You are the rock solid. foundation beneath our feet and anything that comes opposing you and your truth is a lie. And I thank you, Jesus, that you are the life. You are the source by which we move and we live. We have our being. You are the source by which we get to experience the fullness of life here and forevermore. Lord Jesus, we just praise you and we thank you for all that you are and all that we're you're doing in our lives. Lord, I pray that you would help each of us to see any areas of our life where we have gone from clinging to you and we have brought something else to stand beside you. Lord, I pray that you would help us to recognize any idols in our lives and tear those bad boys down. We praise you and we thank you, Jesus. We love you. We really do. Amen.