Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
John 14:6
It doesn’t matter what version you read it in, Jesus is the way, He is THE Truth, and He is the life, the only life. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe (1 Peter 1:5).
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Matthew 7:21-23
The Way is not power, it is faithfulness. The path is not promotion, it is servant-hood. The gift is not yours, it is theirs (2 Corinthians 1:6). The road is not wide, it is narrow.
Jesus said plainly, unless you hate father, mother, sister, brother, children, spouse, even your own life, you cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:26). He said quite distinctly that if you love someone else more than Him, you are not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:37).
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:27
Paul wrote that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6). True religion is a good thing, as opposed to the thing commonly called the “religious spirit”, aka, the demonic force of blindness, deafness, and mere rules. True religion expresses faith through an attitude of love. The word “expresses” here means it does something. As James wrote elsewhere, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Religion does something, it is both forward and reserved, but always after some goal.
The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
Matthew 13:10
1 Peter 1:8 talks about “joy unspeakable” and “full of glory”. Suppose you had experienced this “joy unspeakable”, and had to explain it to someone else. How would you do that? Well, about the best way you could put it would be that it is, in fact, “joy”, and, it’s so incredible, it’s “unspeakable”, so that words do not even seem to do it justice. That would be about it. You could, perhaps, get a few more adjectives in there. It was so “glorious”. But, unless someone else had even seen “glorious”, they wouldn’t get it. You would be more or less stuck, unable to explain it to them.
According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
A man set out one day to build something in following after God. He did only what He sees the Father do, He spoke only His Father gave Him. He wrote no books, built no organization, established no hierarchy, and built no buildings. His work stands today, outside of time, outside of everything.
Today, we establish works. We build buildings. We write manuals and church government manuals. We learn, study, and write leadership guides.
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
John 14:23-24
What are the teachings of Jesus? What are the lessons that He gave us?
Have you ever stopped to consider the parables? Do you know what they mean?
Christianity today has done a good job with the main parts. Jesus is the Way, there is no other. No one comes to the Father, but by Him… But, what of the rest?
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:20
What does it take to dissuade someone from pursuit? A little hardship, a little persecution? Lack of a comfortable home?
Jesus said,
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
Matthew 19:29
What you lose is only temporary, what you gain is worth it. It is Good News.
The cry of a generation, to cleave wholly to the Lord.
They are sick of compromise, and a church that is irrelevant. They are confused over a teaching that on one side talks about power, but on the other hand, can’t get out of its own politics and powerlessness.
Jesus said that would know us by our love, and yet they know us by our cliches.
We have traded faith for doctrinal statements. We have traded true understanding for a listening to sermons we really don’t believe down in the depths of our heart–not enough to be changed.
Some are sincere, but they lack tools to apply. Many want to teach and help others out of the mire, but they fail to understand how to reach in.
What if you had your eyes focused on just one thing? What would it be like if you could just run after the Lord with total abandon, and seek Him with all that you are, continually?
What if you could live with your eyes fixed on the heavenly realm, and live out of the substance of faith? What would that look like? Where would you end up?
Brushing aside fantasy, take a step deeper… What is it that distracts? What is it that pulls you away?
There are two thing absolutely for certain, God will ask more of you than you want to give, AND, He can never ask you for more than you have. So long as we keep in mind that it only, apparently, takes two loves, five fishes, and a mustard seed of faith to feed a multitude, He will never ask you to do more than what you have, when you consider everything.
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
Luke 14:26
The way of discipleship is the way to follow the cross. The requirement of discipleship is to never look back.
Jesus said that the Kingdom was like a precious pearl, that, when found, a man sold all he had and bought it. There is something about finding something that is worth it. If you can see it, if you can recognize what you see, and correctly appraise it, it is not a hard choice to lose everything else to obtain the best. Read more…
Subscribe to David Hogan Podcast
Or try here...
