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_{by Trent - originally posted October 2005}

Jesus is NOT the answer. I don't care how many bumper-stickers say otherwise.
Jesus IS the WAY. Let me explain the difference.

For the sake of discussion, I asked my sister-in-law (who is from Spain) to translate a sentence for me from English into Spanish. Here is her answer: "Spanish spanish spanish-spanish, spanish spanish spanish spanish spanish spanish."

She made spanish into the ANSWER of her translation, instead of the WAY of her translation.

(again for the sake of discussion) I asked a friend mathematician to handle these three problems. Here is his answer: "3X2 = mathematics ... 5 / 4 = mathematics ... 185 - 667 = mathematics."

He was about as helpful as my sister-in-law, don't you think? See the chaos that can happen when someone mistakes the WAY for the ANSWER?

In the first case Spanish was the WAY she was supposed to derive the answer, and in the second example mathematics is the WAY that he was going to handle the questions ... but they inserted the WAY AS the answer.

This is absurd, no? And it is just as absurd to say that Jesus is the ANSWER, when He is the WAY.

The ANSWER always is concerned with "what" ... but it is a far greater thing to know the WAY, because every WAY is concerned with "HOW." If you know HOW, or then you have hope no matter what unforeseen thing comes against you.

Jesus is the HOW to handle the unforeseen things.

Just think about knowing HOW to speak Spanish opens up infinite ways to communicate something. Just think about knowing HOW to use mathematics can make limitless questions (not just the ones that you have memorized) answerable. Jesus, likewise, is the WAY, and we thus know HOW to live.

Creation's ultimate purpose is to glorify God. Jesus is the WAY.for me, a part of the creation, to glorify God. Without the WAY, then I am doomed to fall short of the glory of God. I cannot glorify God on my own, apart from Him I can do absolutely NOTHING, but continue in slavery to sin.

The WAY is Jesus. He is HOW.

I may never know what I should have done in the past, but I know HOW I should have done it ... The Way, before, was Jesus. I should have exchanged my inabilities for His ability.

I may never know what I should do tomorrow, but when I get there ... the highest calling for me is that Jesus be the WAY, the actual HOW, it gets done ... not by my might, nor by my power, but by His Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus.

And as for right NOW, I won't know the answer for what I should do to glorify God, but if I find the WAY, Jesus, then He will supply the answer, even in this very moment.

To every thing that we are so strong as to come up with the answer, we consider that Jesus is irrelevant. We say that we can handle this one, and we call on Him later, if we need Him. Why? We skip the Way. Thus, the answer that we come up with on our own is a guess in the dark. Clearly we have lost our way, without Jesus. And without Jesus, we only think that we know the answer, but we don't.

So, I say that for as many things that I think that I know HOW to handle, it is exactly those things of which I have yet to repent. Why? Because Jesus is the WAY ... He deals with HOW. And by His Spirit, all things are possible.

• GraceHead vs LawHead
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