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PFOA : John 14:1-14

Read John 14:1-14


The conversation that fateful night went like this (John 13:33 – 14:9):
Jesus: “Where I am going you cannot come.”
Peter: “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus: “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward. … And you know the way to where I am going.”
Thomas: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Philip: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
Jesus: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

After following Jesus for three years, the worldview of the disciples was still limited to the physical dimensions. They were still constrained to the material sphere in their thinking . They were unable to comprehend the spiritual. They could not see their way forward. They had walked with Jesus, seen, touched, and heard him. They had seen his miraculous healings, his authority over demons as well as nature. They ate with him and lived with him. Yet they did not fully comprehend who he was. They were very familiar with Jesus. But they could only think spatially and materially. They failed to understand the Person and work of the Lord.

Jesus said “I am the way”. The way to God the Father, to his kingdom, is not physical path; it is not a process, an activity or a ritual; it is not attaining some quality of personality or perfection of life. Jesus is the way, not one of many ways. The way to God lies in knowing the truth about him and experiencing his life. Jesus, by his life on earth and his teaching, and ultimately by his sacrificial death on the cross, opened the way to be reconciled with God.

Jesus is the truth. By his incarnation, he embodied the truth of about God and his love for the world. God has “spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”, (Heb. 1:2,3). Jesus perfectly reveals God to mankind.

Jesus is the life. He, being God the Son, has the life of God, which by the truth of the Gospel, he makes available to mankind. “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

As followers of Jesus Christ, living in the fallen world, we can be so immersed in its secular worldview that we limit our thinking and understanding to just the physical and material. Like the disciples, we can be so familiar with going to church, singing worship songs, enjoying fellowship and even doing Christian ministry that we overlook the whole spiritual dimension of life. If we fail to know the way, if we fail to see God the Father, how then can we be his witnesses?

 

Dr Tony Chan

 

For your prayer : Remember Esther Yap in her work. She has found good accommodation as well as a place to stay in the kampong. Pray for perseverance in language learning as she meets regularly with her teacher. Pray for protection and safety in her travels to the villages.