No Man Comes To The Father But By Me

This seems obvious to many but the traditional way of looking at it doesn't work for me. We don't say this in English, at least not anymore. What did it mean then? The word "by" in this case, according to lexicons and such, means basically "by way of" or "through". That supports the usual view but what sense does it make?

We might say, "I met this guy through my work," or "To get an appointment with him, you'll have to go through his dragon of a secretary first." So we get to the Father through the Son? Almost makes sense but people had been able to communicate with the Father many years before Yeshua was born. Plus Yeshua said we were to pray directly to the Father.

Okay, maybe it's that I AM gave all authority to the son, we now are the son's problem to deal with and the Father told him he didn't want his son losing any of us. So now we supposedly can't get to the Father at all without the son introducing us? The son is supposed to make us presentable first, then we can go in? Maybe.

Even that has a problem though. Yeshua said, "No man comes to the Father..." not "no man is allowed in to see Him". We are only drawn to the Father by way of the son, that's the method He uses to call us. That would have nothing to do with imputed righteousness, sacrifice, none of the things I've been taught to believe it means. Since the son is "the way, the truth, and the life", he is the embodiment of life with the Father. I found the following at a place called christianspirituality.org:

One receives that Life by following the Way, the Way that He demonstrated and taught because He was the embodiment of the Way, He was the Word made flesh Who was the walking and living Human Example of the Way.

Those who met him were drawn to the Father because they saw the Almighty in him. We are to follow that same way and draw others to the Father because of the spirit in us - that's why the comforter, the holy spirit was sent after Yeshua died and rose again. How could we walk as he did, live as he did, drawing others to I AM without the same spirit that was in the Son? That's how we come to the Father "by" Jesus/Yeshua.

Faith and A Debt to the Awesome I AM

Eric on SavageSoto has just posted about Grace THROUGH Faith, I love this guy's blog, thinking, faith...his picture gets to me every time, he's so young (maybe it's an old photo, who knows?). He's clear and articulate and quite persuasive. Even if I didn't agree with what he writes, I'm sure I'd be searching hard to figure out where and how exactly I disagreed. But the more I study and pray, the more I agree and appreciate his writing.

Faith comes from God in the first place, I discovered that long ago. It's never been our doing to "work up" faith - I know, I tried that. All those years of being told I should 'just believe' sent me that way, I tried but it made no sense. It felt like I was trying to believe what someone told me; doubt meant I wasn't sure whoever told me had it right, what did that have to do with God's worthiness to be trusted? On EliYah.com I read in a forum about the etymology and context of the Greek and Hebrew words which led me to realize it's not just a matter of turning off one's brain; often in the OT God said his people could trust him because he had shown them so. It was always up to him to show the people and/or reveal to their hearts and minds that he was trustworthy - only after that were they expected to remember just who they were talking to!

Reading Grace Through Faith today reminds me again how much of a reason there is to love God and be grateful - it always puts me in a good mood and changes my outlook to put my mind on God and not my circumstances. I started a different blog that is to explore how much I AM intervenes in our daily lives because often I don't like what's going on. Stepping back and looking at the overall big picture often makes a difference.

Eric also talks about universal reconciliation, something I discovered just a couple of years ago. I believe scripture supports this which means those 'called' now must have some purpose beyond just being picked out randomly. It may be simple, be the incarnation of the spirit of God so that all can see how wonderful life with him is. Christians have such a bad rep in so many places, I'm thinking we're missing something. It's HARD to focus on something other than one's own circumstances! When I meet someone who hates God, doesn't believe, is skeptical or totally indifferent, it makes me wonder, "Why did I AM reveal himself to me? Why do I get to see miracles, know his love, trust him? Why not him? Or her?" That usually makes me determined to be a personification of the spirit to everyone, it makes me want to go out and see as many people as possible so that they can feel I AM near.