In John fourteen, we have inspiring words from our Lord regarding our future home in heaven.

John 14:1-2 (ESV)
¹  “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ²  In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

Where did Jesus go to prepare a place for us?  Most believe that He went to heaven, but I do not think that is what Jesus had in mind here.  Yes, He would ultimately go back to the Father in heaven (John 13:1), but no preparation was needed in heaven itself for our arrival.  So, where was Jesus going to prepare a place for us?

Jesus was going to the cross to become our propitiation.  He was not preparing the place, He was preparing the way to get to the place.  That is who Jesus is—the way to heaven.

John 14:6 (ESV)
⁶  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus does not just show us the way, or point us in the right direction; He is the way.  No one can ever get to the Father except through Him.  Jesus is the only way that man can reestablish fellowship with God now, and enter into the presence of God in heaven at His appointed time.  He opened the way to the Father by condemning sin in His flesh (Romans 8:3).

Through the blood of Jesus, we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7).  No one else could have redeemed us by his blood because it necessitated a life of sinlessness, which only Jesus lived.  Not just any blood could wash away our sins.  As we sometimes sing, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.  What can make me whole again?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”  He is truly the only way to the Father.

There is something else that Jesus did with His blood that makes Him the way.  He purchased the church.  When saying goodbye to the elders of the church at Ephesus, Paul reminded them of their responsibility toward the flock, but, notice what else he said while doing that.

Acts 20:28 (ESV)
²⁸  Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

The church, which Jesus obtained by the shedding of His blood, is the body of Christ, which is composed of all Christians, making it the heart of Christianity.  There is no salvation outside of Christ (Ephesians 1:3), which necessarily implies that one must be a member of the Lord’s church if he is ever to make it to the Father.  This is another sense in which Jesus is the Way.  In fact, in the New Testament, those who were Christians were a part of what was called the Way.  

Acts 9:1-2 (ESV)
¹  But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ²  and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

There are many other references to Christianity being called “the Way” (Acts 19:9, 23, 24:14, 22).

Jesus prepared the way to the Father by dying on the cross, and now only those who are of the Way can have a relationship with Him.  Truly, Jesus is the Way.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.