1. What did Jesus declare about Himself in the following passages: John 14:6, John 18:37, John 6:27?
2. Why has God declared that we can only come to Him, be saved and know His will and plan for our lives exclusively through Jesus?
3. How do we know that what Jesus claimed about Himself is true?
   
   

The first step to knowing God’s Will and Plan for Your life is to understand that You must turn to Jesus Christ of Nazareth to know that plan. Jesus said about Himself the following:

"I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6)

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.... Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.... If anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out, and find pasture." (John 10:1-9)

"For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." (John 18:37).

"Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27).

Jesus tells us in these four passages many things about himself: first, that He has a personal individual plan for our lives and that He is the ONLY way to that plan. Second, that he is our only means of Salvation and that to go any other way will not lead to our salvation. Third, He tells us that not only is He a source of truth, but that He is TRUTH itself. He said, "Everyone who is of the truth hears MY VOICE."  He said this to Pilate who was getting ready to crucify Him. Pilate said to Jesus in response, What is truth? We say this ourselves, What is truth? It is the confusion of our society today. We no longer know what is true or what is false when it comes to moral absolutes. It is why our law makers can no longer bring order in our society and restraint on evil because they can no longer answer the question that Pilate himself asked: What is truth? Jesus said to Pilate, I Am! Do You want to know why you were created, what God’s will and plan for your life is? Jesus said there is only one way you can get this knowledge: You must come to Him to get it.

Furthermore, Jesus did not say He was one of God’s ways to truth, but that He was the ONLY way. He went even further than that. He said that on Him and Him alone God has set his seal. That means that Jesus was saying that God the Father has declared that the only way you can come to God, know His will and plan for Your life, have relationship with Him, be saved and go to heaven is by coming to Him exclusively through His Son:  Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

The Apostle Paul put it this way in Ephesians 1:5, he wrote, "He determined beforehand to adopt us as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will." What Paul is saying is that before God created the world through Jesus Christ, He decided then that the only way we could come to Him, be reconciled to Him, know His reason for creating us and plan for our lives and become His sons and daughters was by coming to Him exclusively through His Son Jesus Christ.

Why has God declared that we can only come to Him, be saved and know His will and plan for our lives exclusively through Jesus? Because only Jesus and Jesus alone perfectly reflects and represents the will and nature of God. The Apostle Philip said to Jesus one day, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to Philip in response, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:8-9). The writer of the book of Hebrews stated it this way: he said, "And He is the reflected-brightness of His glory and the exact-image of His essence." (Heb 1:3). The reason why the Father tells us that we can only come to Him through Jesus alone to know His will and plan for our lives is because only Jesus and Jesus alone represents who God is in all His essence, nature and character. This is because Jesus Christ Himself is God. The Apostle John writes us about Jesus’ Divinity and Humanity in the Gospel of John 1:1, and 1:14:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory."

Do You want to know what God is like? Study the life, character, words and deeds of Jesus, because whatever Jesus is doing is what God is doing and what God is like.

If Jesus is the only way we can come to God receive Salvation, and know God’s will and plan for our lives, than how do we come to God through Jesus? We come to God through Jesus by opening up our hearts to Jesus and asking Him to come into our hearts and live there as Savior from our sins and as Lord of our lives and destiny. God the Father testifies to us through the Apostle John what determines whether or not we have eternal life and will go to heaven in 1 John 5:11-12,

"And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."

Jesus said, recorded by the Apostle John in Revelation 3:20,

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me."

How do we know that these claims of Jesus are true? This is an honest question. History is full of people who claimed to be messengers of God: Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Buddha, just to name a few. They all claimed to be exclusive messengers of God and that their books were God’s word. Often times when I ask followers of these different faiths why they believe their founders are prophets of God and that their sacred scriptures are God’s Word, they will usually reply, "Oh, I have an inner witness and feeling that these things are true!"

They will then ask me why I believe Jesus is God the Son and why I believe the Judeo-Christian Bible and that alone is God’s Holy inspired Word. I answer them by explaining that It is not because I feel it is true. Feelings change. One day I may get up believing it is true and the next morning I may not feel God’s presence at all. Jesus’ enemies asked Jesus for proof to his claims to be God in the flesh, the only way to God and truth itself. They said to Him, "Hey, we know your mother and father. Your not even education. You’re just a carpenter." Jesus looked his enemies straight in the face and said to them, "Kill me. I will stay dead three days and then come back from the dead to prove to you that My claims about Myself are true!" (John 2:18-22).

At the time Jesus said this, even his disciples had doubts about His claims. Wasn’t Jesus just a man? Could you imagine if the President of the United States got on national TV and declared that he and he alone was the only way to God and the only source of true truth? They would come with the white wagon and put him in a straight jacket and take him away. Therefore Jesus’ enemies questions and His disciple’s doubts were not unreasonable. They had a right to demand of Jesus proof beyond a reasonable doubt that He was who He claimed to be and His other claims. Even if Jesus were alive today, for anyone of us to make this same request would not be a lack of faith. If Jesus is really God in the flesh, then He is obligated to prove it to us if we are to show him homage and honor as our Creator and God. Jesus’ disciples had doubts about His claims, but they could not deny His miracles, so they kept following Him; but the Apostle John records in this same passage what the end result of Jesus rising back from the dead was on their thinking and beliefs. He records:

"When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they BELIEVED THE SCRIPTURE, and the WORD which JESUS HAD SPOKEN." (John 2:22)

You see, people not taking the Old Testament literally today is nothing new. "Common! You don’t really believe Noah built an ark and God brought a total flood upon the earth which destroyed all life and produced the fossil layers in the earth we have today, that God parted the red sea so the Israelites could cross in safety, that Jonah was really swallowed by a fish and lived through the ordeal, that the heavens and the earth were created in six literal 24-hour days? Common! this is the twentieth century!" Even Jesus’ disciples had doubts about taking the Old Testament literally. But after Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, John states that they never doubted anything that the Old Testament taught as literal historical fact again, nor any claim that Jesus made about himself again.

The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that there were more than 512 witness to the fact of Jesus’ Physical Resurrection. One time when I shared this with a college student, he told me it was just mass hysteria. They just saw what they thought was Jesus in the distance and then He was gone, or they were in such grief, they just could not believe He was dead and so worked themselves up into a religious frenzy and really honestly believed they saw what they thought was Jesus. I told this person that, that would be a good argument if all they did was see Jesus in the distance and then the vision was gone, but is that what the New Testament records record? Luke, the writer of Acts in the New Testament, who was an educated physician, records about Jesus after His Resurrection in Acts 1:3:

"To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God."

They did not just see Jesus in the distance for a moment, but ate with Him and talked with Him for forty days after His Resurrection. They had plenty of time to bring his mother and brothers and sisters over to verify that this really was the same Jesus just crucified, the same Jesus that had been stabbed through the heart with a spear by a Roman soldier to make sure He really was dead before they took Him down and buried Him.

It happened that when Jesus first appeared to his disciples that one of His Apostles, Thomas, was away on business. When he got back, some of the disciples told him Jesus was alive, that his claims were true. Thomas said in response,

"Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." (John 20:24-25)

Another honest skeptic. A few days later while Thomas and some other disciples were gathered together in a room, Jesus came into the room and walked up to Thomas and said,

"Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing."

Thomas said in response, "My Lord and my God!"

This is how we know that Jesus really is God in the flesh, that His death really did pay sin’s penalty in our place and that when we ask Him to come into our hearts and reveal His will and plan for our lives that He will: because He came back from the dead to prove to us that anything He says, claims or promises is absolutely true truth that we can base our lives on. Nothing personal Mormons, Moslems, Buddhists and Evolutionists, but your founders gave no proof to their claims. They are dead and you can go and visit their graves. Jesus is Alive! Jesus’ Resurrection proves to us absolutely that everything he said, claimed and promised is absolutely true truth that we can base our lives on. The Apostle Paul wrote about Jesus’ Resurrection: "who was declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead." (Romans 1:4).

So, if you ask Jesus to come into your heart and reveal His will and plan for your life, how do we know he will come in and do this? Not because we feel it, but because He came back from the dead to prove to us that these promises of His are true. Therefore, the first step to knowing what God’s will and plan for Your life is, is coming to Him for that will and plan through His Son Jesus Christ, and the way you do this is by inviting Jesus into Your heart as Savior and Lord of Your life. Do You want to know what God’s will and plan for Your life is? If you do, then pray the following prayer right now, if you have not done so before, and ask Jesus to come permanently into your heart as Savior and Lord of your life:

If You just prayed this prayer and meant it, then Jesus is in your heart, you have eternal life and you are going to heaven and you are able to now receive and know what God’s will and plan for your life is. You have done your part: received Jesus Christ of Nazareth into Your heart as Lord and Savior of Your life. Now it is up to Jesus to make known to You what that will and plan is.