The Way, The Truth, and The Life

I enjoy listening to and reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John's accounts of Jesus' life.  Jesus is the way the truth and the life and we all must come to the Father through Him. I have the King James version of the bible on CD, narrated by Alexander Scourby, and sometimes I find when I listen to the scriptures being read, I get a visual account of events.

I have been listening to these four gospels as of late, and I have heard things in the scriptures that I had not grasped in the past when I read the same chapters and verses.

Things like when Jesus healed the lame or blind on the Sabbath.  Instead of the critics praising God for the miracles and taking into consideration that the people were made whole by the power of God (who incidentally instituted the Sabbath), they chose rather to get infuriated and angry that Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  They considered healing someone as work, and of course in their religious minds God would not want anyone healed on the Sabbath day for they said, "there are six days in which you can heal."  How crazy is that?   They could not accept that Jesus was the the way God chose for salvation, and they missed out on many, many blessings God had for them.

As many times as I read this or listen to this, it still amazes me that not one time did any of them take a step back to see why they were so angry, or to even evaluate what was happening, or to call a prayer meeting to seek God about what was going on.  Not one time did any of the religious leaders question their beliefs and if they were according to God's Wisdom and not man's wisdom.

So, I got the thinking about myself and whether or not I had that "Pharisee spirit" operating in my life.  Sometimes when you have been saved for a long time and have gotten into religious habits, I could see in those gospels that you can truly miss what God is doing in the earth if you are not willing to take another look.

Not all change is from God, nor is all change good; but at least inquire of the Father if this is His will or not.  No one holds the sum knowledge of God, so let's not deceive ourselves into thinking that when we see or hear a "new thing" in the Body of Christ that it is not of God.

I relate it to computers.  I got so use to the operating system before XP, that I had no desire to accept XP.  As computer operating systems advancement came, I told myself that I was just fine; not even considering that there might be something in XP that I could benefit from in that new version.

Well, I loved XP!  That's why I take thought to all areas of my life to determine if I am applying the pharisee way to things.

As you take into account your life in Christ Jesus, be sure that you use this as a measuring stick.  Am I missing God because of what and how I believe it should be, or how I was taught, or what I think.

To be a follower of Christ we need to crucify the "I" factor in our beliefs and deny ourselves as Jesus said, take up our cross and follow him.  That means following Him in the direction that He is going!


For we are Ambassadors of Christ  -   2 Corinthians 5:20