The Needle

If you are looking for a needle in a barn filled with straw, and you desparately need to find this needle, and I am standing there, and know exactly where this needle is, would you start looking for the needle without asking?

These are the words of Christ:

John 14:1-6, “Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  And you know the way to where I am going.”  Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It is the last verse that struck me the more I thought about it; however, don’t let yourself glaze over the promises in verses 1-4.

In our world today, there are so many methods, opinions, plans, schemes, mode of operation, and standard operating procedures both from a personal standpoint and a business standpoint, that one must wonder from day to day which is the right way.  At your job and at mine, we must find ourselves questioning things at times.  Why does the company have this policy, or why do we have to perform a task in the way described rather than the way we think it should be done.  

In your personal and spiritual life, you make decisions every day, and every moment based on something.  Some path you have decided in the past you will follow, or an errant choice that was suggested by a friend who made a suggestion to you based on something they believed to be true.  We all believe in something.

Shouldn’t we all be concerned with what way is the right way? 

If there wasn’t a right way, but rather a spectrum of options, one doesn’t need to be concerned about this post at all.

However, once, Jesus said He was the way.   He is talking about the way to be with Him for all eternity.  Thomas asks him how they can know the way to be with Him, and Jesus did not respond with, “Well, you can choose this option or that, or perhaps mold the path to conform to your standards, and you’ll get there.”

What I’d like to focus on are the implications of the “little” bit that Jesus said in verse 6.  

1)      The word “the” is huge.  Jesus didn’t say I am a way, I am a truth, and I am a life.  The word “the” implies completeness, fullness, no other “the.”  The way means , “I’m it.  Don’t have me, you don’t have the way.  Just come to me, and know.”  The truth means, “I am truth, and without me, you don’t have truth, and can’t find it anywhere else.”  The life means “With me you have life, without me, there is no other life, and you don’t have it, but come to me, and you will.”

2)      The mere point of saying there is a way to heaven provides us great hope.  No one is hopeless.

3)      Saying there is one way assumes that there must be some who think there are others ways, thus making it necessary to state that there is one way.

4)      The other ways are not the right way, and end in disaster and destruction.

5)      There are things that are false in the world.  Why say you are truth if everything is true?

6)      To say that He is truth means that all truth comes from Him, and many will be deceived by the things that aren’t true. Know Jesus and know the truth.

7)      Jesus wants you to hear him say, “I am truth”, and respond with faith.

8)      Life comes from Jesus.  “I am the Life’ means exactly this.

9)      There would be no reason to say, “I am the life”, if there were other ways that led to life.  There are ways that lead to death and decay.

10)  Know Jesus, and know true life.

11)  Deny Jesus, and know death, lies, and the wrong way.

The needle story form above?  That needle is Jesus.  The little twist here is that if you don’t ask for the “needle” from Jesus, and you start looking for it in the barn, there is no needle to be found.

To rephrase the needle story.  

You are alive.  Your true life and your eternal life depends on finding the way, the truth, and the life.  You are seeking it out all your days on earth.  It is so important to know what the truth is.  It is so important to know what life really is.  It is so important to know the way to get to the truth, and that life.  In your life you know someone.  This person knows exactly where it is.  There is only ONE truth, ONE way, ONE life, and they have it and know it!  Ask them.  Don't look first.  You'll never find it.  Look to Jesus and live. 

Only Jesus