#DailyDevotion Why Are You Troubled? Jesus Is The Way, The Truth & The Life
John 14“Don’t be troubled. Believe in God, and believe in Me. 2In My Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. 3And when I have gone and prepared a place for you, I’ll come again and take you home with Me so you’ll be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I’m going.” 5“Lord, we don’t know where You’re going,” Thomas said to Him. “So how can we know the way?” 6“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Jesus answered him. “No one comes to the Father except by Me.”
This passage is from the night Jesus was to be betrayed. The disciples were troubled because Jesus was telling them all that was to take place. One of them would betray him. He would be arrested and crucified. Why wouldn’t they be troubled? But Jesus comforts them, “Don’t be troubled. Believe in God, and believe in Me.” This similar to what he said in Matt. 10:28“Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body and can’t kill the soul, but fear Him who can destroy soul and body in hell.” Or “If God is for us who can be against us?” We need to remember these things and trust these things when the world, life, death, sin and the devil try to disturb us. Instead of being trouble, believe in God and trust in Christ Jesus. Perhaps we need to remember the words of Elisah to the king of Israel, 2 King 616“Don’t be afraid,” he answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
Jesus comforts the disciple, he comforts us with the words, 2“In My Father’s house there are many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you” Jesus is leaving his disciples and us and that makes them troubled. But his leaving is for our good. He is going to prepare a place for us. He is even right now preparing a place for us. He is making the new heavens and new earth. He is preparing the throne room of God for us. He is making a home for us to live in at the resurrection. If Jesus is going then he is coming back.
Yes, that is a fundamental teaching of Christianity that seems to be forgotten thanks in no part to the forgotten teaching of the resurrection of the body. The false teaching that we simply go to heaven when we die and worse become angels robs us of the hope, comfort and strength the message gives us here. As much as we may romanticize living in light as disembodied spirits or angels, our bodies recoil at the thought and so do our souls. They know we are to be one; body, soul and spirit. So yes Jesus is coming back when he has prepared a place for us to take us to where he is and to be with him forever. He will take us back to his home in the resurrection of all flesh and in the restoration of the cosmos. We will be with him in our own flesh and with our own eyes see the heavenly Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. For heaven is not a matter of being spirits but being in the presence of our God who loves us and cares for us.
Jesus points us the way to get there. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. What a great Trinitarian confession of faith. If we know Jesus, we know the Trinity. Jesus reveals God to us. If you want to know God you need only look to Jesus. If you want access to the Father, you go through Jesus. It is Jesus alone that is our way to God. It is Jesus alone who is the truth that reveals God and his attitude toward us. It is Jesus alone who is the life of God that gives us eternal life. This way, this truth, this life Jesus offers to you freely.
Heavenly Father, you sent your son Jesus Christ to the Way, the Truth and the Life for us so we may dwell eternally with you in the resurrection. Grant us your Holy Spirit that we may believe this and not be troubled by anything. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.