Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. -John 14:6 NLT
Imagine this, you meet someone new and they seem like a pretty good person, they’re interesting, and they are even possibly someone you want to get to know better. So, you begin to talk with them. But every conversation you have is one that is filled with only your complaints and issues, and you don’t take an interest in getting to know them. In fact, the only time you even talk is when you’re dealing with something difficult and come to them for help, but after that you go away for long stretches of time. It doesn’t sound like a very deep or even stable friendship, right? If we were trying to establish a relationship with a new friend, we wouldn’t talk only about ourselves and our needs. We would get to know the other person as best we could, learning about them and growing closer to them.
When we strengthen our relationship with Jesus by focusing on Him more than we focus on the world around us, we truly get to know who He is. We learn about His character and develop a closeness that is almost too big for words. We gain a true friendship that is closer than any earthly friendship we could ever have.
He is our Way, but He can also be our best friend throughout the journey. When we first believed He secured our place in heaven which is the greatest gift we have ever been given. He wants us with Him when we pass, but He also wants our relationship with Him to be our focus while we are still on earth. He knows that by doing this we will have our way set for us, truth along the journey, and be filled with life to the fullest while here. And then when we go to meet Him one day, it will be as if we are seeing our old friend that we have known all along.
When we keep our focus on Jesus, we don’t have to question if we are on the right paths, or even have internal doubts if we will be welcomed in to heaven in the first place. By having that closeness with Jesus, where our thoughts are fixed on Him, we have His peace. We can know that we are right where we should be, and if we need to turn left or right, He is there to lead the way. He won’t take us down any paths that we don’t need to go, and if we stick with Him, He will lead us right to the Father with open arms.
Jesus won’t mislead us, abandon us, or forsake us. He simply wants us, just as we are right now and He wants to hear from us. Jesus knows that focusing on Him will be good for us because in Him we are given what we are lacking. He is promising to show us the way, give us the truth, and grant us freedom of life if we just fix our focus to Him.
