Jesus Is the Way to Life
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6, NIV.
It is hard to imagine living without putting food in our mouth or breathing air into our lungs. Yet a healthy, developing baby can grow just fine in its water-filled home within the uterus without ever eating or breathing. God has prepared a very special way for nutrients and oxygen to come into the baby's body and for wastes to be removed. He designed a unique and intricate organ we call the placenta, which is attached to the baby by the umbilical cord.
The placenta takes over many important body functions for the baby, allowing its organs to grow and mature as long as it is in the uterus. It acts as the baby's lungs, providing oxygen to the entire body, and serves as the baby's stomach and intestines, supplying vitamins and nutrients to keep the infant healthy. Also, it behaves as the baby's kidneys, removing wastes from its blood. Immediately after birth the umbilical cord is painlessly cut. Since neither the baby nor the mother needs the placenta anymore, it leaves the mother's body.
Imagine a single organ doing all these special things for the baby when it is unable to do them for itself!
It reminds me of how dependent we are on God. God gave us a placenta to sustain our life while in utero, and then after we were born, each breath and heartbeat is His gift of life to us. But in addition, God has designed a way for us to escape from sin and have eternal life. His way of life, His "placenta" for the condition we are in, is Christ.
"It is impossible for us, of ourselves, to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. . . . Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. . . . There must be a power working from within. . . . That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness" (Steps to Christ, p. 18).
Truly God is our life-giver!
Are you trying to be good by yourself? Christ has a better way. Depend on Him, for His power and grace are the only way for you to have life eternal!
It is hard to imagine living without putting food in our mouth or breathing air into our lungs. Yet a healthy, developing baby can grow just fine in its water-filled home within the uterus without ever eating or breathing. God has prepared a very special way for nutrients and oxygen to come into the baby's body and for wastes to be removed. He designed a unique and intricate organ we call the placenta, which is attached to the baby by the umbilical cord.
The placenta takes over many important body functions for the baby, allowing its organs to grow and mature as long as it is in the uterus. It acts as the baby's lungs, providing oxygen to the entire body, and serves as the baby's stomach and intestines, supplying vitamins and nutrients to keep the infant healthy. Also, it behaves as the baby's kidneys, removing wastes from its blood. Immediately after birth the umbilical cord is painlessly cut. Since neither the baby nor the mother needs the placenta anymore, it leaves the mother's body.
Imagine a single organ doing all these special things for the baby when it is unable to do them for itself!
It reminds me of how dependent we are on God. God gave us a placenta to sustain our life while in utero, and then after we were born, each breath and heartbeat is His gift of life to us. But in addition, God has designed a way for us to escape from sin and have eternal life. His way of life, His "placenta" for the condition we are in, is Christ.
"It is impossible for us, of ourselves, to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. . . . Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. . . . There must be a power working from within. . . . That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness" (Steps to Christ, p. 18).
Truly God is our life-giver!
Are you trying to be good by yourself? Christ has a better way. Depend on Him, for His power and grace are the only way for you to have life eternal!
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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