ONLY ONE WAY

JOHN 17:3

“… this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”

                  To know God is much more than having head knowledge of him and believing he exists.  The word ‘know’ carries a much more intimate meaning in scripture.  To ‘know’ someone, in the Old Testament in particular, is to have a very deep, significantly personal relationship with another individual. This happens to be true even if the other individual happens to be the one true “unseen” God.  Therefore we are not speaking of a frivolous thing here, but rather an abiding presence in our lives.  We can only achieve this close, ultra personal relationship by accepting God’s free gift of forgiveness for all your sins.  It is only then that we begin to draw closer to God and that thru prayer and the reading of his Word.  You cannot know anyone intimately unless you spend time with him or her.  To think that the Holy Spirit is going to fill us with heavenly knowledge without us looking for it is like receiving nourishment without eating; it will never happen.

            Head knowledge is useless without its’ application.  In other words, we must apply what we learn to our daily lives as a means of improving our situation.  For believers, applying God’s word to our lives is critical as we strive to imitate our Savior.  Those living in the world are living a lie.  They think they’re just fine.  They believe in their hearts that they are good people. If they believe in the existence of God they find themselves accepting the notion that the God they feel they know would never send someone who is essentially good to hell for all eternity. And is there really a hell at all anyway?  They believe what they choose to belief; that which doesn’t disrupt their life or disrupts it the least.

            The world has come up with many ways to get to heaven, but the heaven that God created and has set aside for true believers has no place for those who believe they can just be good and enter in by virtue of the positive deeds they have done in their life. Christ’s blood was shed for a specific reason and that reason was to pay our sin debt. Without it there is no heaven in store for man. Until next time, walk with the King and be a blessing!

Resource:  The Life Application Study Bible; Tyndale House Publishers.