Winter 1984
Jesus Christ The Way
Thomas Worth
Pinecrest Faculty

Do we remember how we first found the Lord? We repented in response to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We yielded to His wooing and took that initial step of obedience. We opened the door of our heart and let the Lord Jesus come into our life. He amazed us with His grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).

What makes us think that the process of our growing in Christ will ever be any different? “Having begun in the Spirit” are we made perfect by some other way? In other words, do we view God’s working in our lives at salvation as one thing and our progression onward with God as something else? Paul says it cannot be.

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1-3)

The implication of what Paul begins to set forth here in Galatians is that having begun in the Spirit; we need to continue in the Spirit. Paul was saying that their beginnings in the Spirit were founded on their receiving the vivid proclamation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To continue in the Spirit, the Galatians needed to realize that the preaching of the Cross was not only the starting point but the Way, the fullness of all the wisdom and power of God. We need to realize the same.

Our first taste of the Lord told us that He is gracious. As we continue to eat and drink of Him it can only be as this advocate of “going on” described it? “For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end” (Heb.3:14).

What does it mean to partake of Christ? The Lord Jesus Himself said: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

If we come to Him our hunger is satisfied. If we trust in Him our thirst is quenched. Therefore, coming to Jesus is like eating. Trusting in Him is like drinking. This is what we did when we first were saved. It is precisely what we must continue to do if we desire to live. We will starve if we don’t. We live by coming to and believing in Jesus. There is no need for anything other than Him. We began with Him. We need more of the same. Whatever the need is for the filling of the Spirit, healing, personal righteousness and holiness, freedom from sin and bondages or initial salvation, the answer, the gift is the same. At the Cross the Father prepared a table for us and He invited us to partake of the most precious gift He could possibly give us, His Son, Jesus Christ. “Come; for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17).

Are we mooning over some future spiritual plateau? Or are we discovering that the Lord Jesus is not only the goal but the way to get there? Our understanding of this will bring us from a position of continually struggling to reach a plane where our struggling can cease, to a place where we can abide at peace with God because we have found that the way we first made peace with Him, is the same way we grow in fellowship with Him. When we begin to see this truth we will stop our running from teaching to teaching in our effort to “go on” and we will begin to rest in a basic, abiding wisdom that will keep us through all life’s changes, and enable us to commune with God not only in the end but also along the way.

How did we first change? We put our trust in the Lord Jesus. We surrendered to Him. He gave us the gift of His Life. This is the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5).

Because the Lord never changes, we must change. Repentance and faith toward God are not just stages we pass through at the beginning of our Christian walk; they are our Christian walk. The man who has ceased to repent is the man who has ceased to grow. Christians reach a plateau when they feel there is no need to trust the Lord anymore than they have already. The obedience of faith becomes history rather than an ongoing adventure. Let us allow God to unify our fragmented view of His purpose and see when we first came to the Lord Jesus we were being introduced not only to the means to an end, but to the One in whom the means and the end merge, Someone who is the Way.

We became acquainted with this Way when we first turned to the Lord. We responded to the dealing of the Holy Spirit. We believed in God’s awesome love for us. We yielded to Him. He gave us His life. It shall ever be so. The way we were saved is the same way we take any step in God.

“Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whiter thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (John 14:5-6).