Deuteronomy 30:11-20
The Offer of Life or Death
11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
John 14:1-14
Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Moses writes that the LORD is your very life...Moses teaches us that before us each day is our daily choices...God gives us free will to choose...God sets before us each morning -today in life...The choices we make are so important...We decide life and prosperity, or death and destruction...Or put another way, we can choose life and good in each of our decisions, or we can choose death and evil...
The Prophet Daniel, referred to a Messiah as The Son of Man, a descendant of King David, a Prophet who would rebuild the nation of Israel...This Prophet, the One who was to come, would destroy evil and eventually judge the world...Jesus was and is this Messiah...Jesus was and is the Christ that was to come...
When the Messiah came to earth He said many wise and unique things...One of the things Jesus said is that He is the Way, The Truth, and The Life...Jesus puts an exclusive nature on Himself, and does it such a subtle way, that the first time I read these passages about the night of His last Passover meal, I missed the whole thing...Jesus is our very way -to the truth and to life that Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy...We can only go through Jesus to get to God the Father...He says no one comes to the Father except through Me...Jesus is unique...He is the most unique Man, to ever walk the earth, if it is fair to call Him a man...He, in fact, is our very life -both on earth and in heaven...
As I have read and reread these passages about the night of the Passover, with Jesus comforting His disciples and trying to prepare them for the upcoming events that will be happening to Him -He makes some things clear...But I think they are lost and are actually not so clear in the way He says these things with and in His Divine Humility...That somehow, is because He is our Messiah, they are said and received in a divine non-arrogant way...Jesus is the Only One in any religion who could and did say -I AM the way to God the Father...In the other religions and teachers of Buddhism, Mohammed-ism, Hinduism, and the other religions -no one said anything like this...And yet, when He said I AM The Way, The Truth, and The Actual Life you need each day, many do not see Him as equal to the Father...Or as He put it, I and the Father are One (John 10:30)...He even puts it another way to Philip, I AM in the Father, and the Father is in Me...The Father is actually living in Me... He has no parallel in any other religion...There is no one to compare Jesus to...What He said was exclusive in the way He said things, and He was exclusive to nature itself...Yet, as said earlier, His Divine Humbleness (or at least something) somehow hides most (if not all) of this exclusiveness of what He said...
The Son of God has the most unique unity with His Father...This, to me, is made clear...Jesus tells His disciples to trust in God, but to also trust in Him...He is going to His Father in heaven and prepare a place, a room for them...Heaven has eternal rooms, and there is an eternal room waiting for each of us, if we believe in God and the One He sent (John 3:16)...He talks about heaven with such commonplace speech (like He has been there), with a wisdom about it, and such a grasp on this Kingdom of God's...
There is this Great and Almighty uniqueness in Jesus...He is the most unique and Man to walk the earth...He explained many things in such divine subtleties, wanting each listener and readers of the gospels to decide for themselves who He is...In fact, I think, that He said the things He said in such a unique and divine way, we can get lost and His words somehow (I really do not know how to put this, because He is God) lose their clarity...We can lose and miss the big picture of who He was and what He said...But He did say He is The Way to the very Truth, and our very Lives, both now and eternal...And as we read through the New Testament and all its different books and authors, we don't see all the authors saying and thinking He was God...But we do have one doubting disciple, who did figure this out...Thomas, after touching the glorious wounds of His and our Savior, says in almost disbelief "My LORD and My GOD!"...
So maybe, just maybe He said these things in such a way and in the way He wanted (and we know He did -because He know all things)...He said them in this unclear way, to leave us with a choice...Is He really this unique?...We have to choose, was He God in the flesh...The question of is Jesus really God in the flesh, maybe the most important question of our lives...He gives us free choice...He said what He wanted to say, and had what was written, because He inspired the authors what to write...All Scripture is God breathed and inspired by Him (Timothy 3:16)...To me this is why the Son of God did not make all things clear...We have a decision to make...Joshua said many centuries earlier -me and my household will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15)...Joshua made a decision and chose the LORD and His God, like Saint Thomas did...They chose life...Without Him there is no life...