There are times when you think you understand a passage, and then a preacher reveals something you’d never noticed before. This was one of those mornings. Just as a building has a foundation, so do our lives. As Paul writes to the church in Corinth he points out something which every Christian has, Jesus Christ as our foundation.

If we are Christians, what we are building should reflect our foundation. We should be building with that which is precious, costly and permanent, rather than that which is easy to come buy, quick to build, cheap and fleeting. Do we ensure our lives are built with good solid biblical teaching rather than the clever arguments of men, do we work to build the kingdom of God rather than that of men? Are we members of a local church, committed to serving God in our locality, or are we unwilling to commit to one church and merely feeding instead of working?

Our motivation should not be to seek the praise of men, but the reward of God. This reward will not be in this life, being a Christian will not make us materially rich, nor necessarily healthy. The reward will be on the day when we will all stand before God. Will we be able to say that we used the foundation we were given to its fullest potential, or will we have underdeveloped it?

In an age which is very similar to ours today, Jesus makes a bold statement. Much like today, the Roman Empire of the 1st century was a very multi-cultural, pluralistic society, with a very accepting attitude to all manner of religions and philosophies. There were gods and philosophies of all kinds throughout the empire, it was very much a consumer market.

Jesus’ statement went straight against the popular thinking of the day.

I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. Jn 14:6

Here was an absolute statement in a sea of relativism. To those who said that all faiths were equally valid, this was anathema. How could anyone claim to have a monopoly on the truth?

When you look at other aspects of life though, we don’t have such a pluralistic view. When we’re ill, we’d be ill-advised to take the medical advice of anyone who voiced their opinion. We seek out doctors who know what they’re talking about and have the means to help us.

In our daily lives, we rest upon absolutes when we do our shopping. We don’t make up our own arithmetic when calculating our bill, but we still to the absolutes of mathematics. Our thinking isn’t guided by how we feel, but by what we know.

If our lives at a basic level rests on absolutes, why should our Spirituality be any different? In other parts of our lives, we assess the options. In a culture which states all religions are equally valid, Jesus’ claim is either invalid, or invalidates the statement. He cannot be the way, the truth and the life, if all religions are equally valid. All religions cannot all be equal is Jesus claim is true.
A look at his claim can only boil down to three options, famously stated by C. S. Lewis.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis

Looking at the life of Jesus in the New Testament, Jesus doesn’t come across as either a fool, nor a fiend. Those who listened were amazed at his teaching, those who came to him were healed of their afflictions. His seeming defeat at the hands of men were to lead to his ultimate show of who he is. His crucifixion and resurrection would demonstrate his mission and his power.

For he was God in the flesh. All other attempts to reach God would be a contravention of the first two commandments. If we were to try to worship God apart from Jesus, we would be worshipping a false god. Not only that, but we would be trying to fashion God in our image, trying to approach him on our terms instead of his terms.

As we remember those who have fallen in war, we are reminded of the great cost at which peace is purchased. A peace which is temporal and fragile.

Yet there is an even greater peace which can be obtained. For, in our sinful state, we are at war with God, our creator and sustainer. We have rebelled against his very being, refusing to give him the glory he is due. While we may have temporal peace (and even this isn’t always the case), our souls long for a deeper peace, a peace with God. Of ourselves, we cannot obtain this peace, and a just God cannot overlook our rebellion. However, God is also merciful, and in his grace has sent his Son to take on the wrath our sin deserved that we might be saved from this punishment, and that we might take on his righteousness through faith in him.

For when we consider the cost of our salvation, the mind boggles. This is the sacrifice of God for man, that we might be right with God, that we might know God, that we might be at peace with God.

The third and final part of the second commandment basically breaks down humanity into one of two camps. Those who hate God and those who love God.

In our natural state, we hate God. We want nothing to do with him, this is sin at its most basic. Those who hate God are sinners by nature. This is not to say we are completely evil. We will do good to others, we will seek the good of others, but we will not do this to glorify God. Our whole ethos is on self-preservation, and the denial of God. This culminated in the ultimate sin when God became a man, and allowed himself to be crucified by his creation. The actions of a holy, just, God towards those who rebel against him is his wrath.

This was the not the way it was meant to be though. For we are created in the image of God with the purpose of knowing God, loving God and doing his will. It is by this that we can truly enjoy life. It was through the sin of Adam, that all mankind fell, and are born into a state of sin.

Amazingly, it is through the crucifixion that we can be restored to what we were meant to be. Jesus Christ lived a righteous life, that by his blood, he would take on our sin and the punish it deserves, and his righteousness becomes ours, that we might be in a right relationship before God.

Why did God do this?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16

God doesn’t love us because we loved him. He loves us first, and when we are restored to our original intended state, we will love him and will want to do what he commands.