I don’t think anybody would deny that Jesus has made an incredible difference in our world. Now that difference can be taken one of two ways. Many of us are happy with the difference Jesus made when He came into the world and we actively promote the difference that He can continue to make in our world today. Others aren’t as happy about it. They don’t like the standard of righteousness that Jesus came to establish and they don’t like the rule of law contained in His gospel. But regardless of which side of the conversation a person may fall on there’s no doubt that He’s made a difference.
But that shouldn’t surprise us because everything we read about Jesus from the very beginning of time speaks to the difference He always intended to make. The earliest mention of Him in Scripture warned that He would strike a fatal blow to the cause of Satan and darkness in our world (Genesis 3:15). What a difference that would make! When the angel announced His coming birth to Joseph he said that His name would be “JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Sounds like a pretty significant difference to me. On the other side of the fence we see Herod and one of the first opponents of the difference Jesus was going to bring in this world. When he heard about Jesus being born “he was troubled” and immediately conspired to have Him killed (Matthew 2:1ff). Herod knew that He was a threat to the status quo.
However, here’s the key. Jesus has not just made a difference in the world at large. I’m afraid if we only think about it in that way that we will begin to look at Jesus in a very impersonal way. The fact is that Jesus has made all the difference to me. You see, I was a sinner lost and without hope. I did things and said things that I shouldn’t have done or said. I treated people in a way that was un-Christlike. The world was in me and it influenced me life far more than it should have. Needless to say the old saying was true with me – sin took me farther than I intended to go and cost me more than I intended to pay. But then entered Jesus.
Jesus showed me the way. The Bible speaks of one and only way that we should live our lives. That’s God’s way. His way is powerful (Hebrews 4:12-13), perfect (James 1:25); and eternal (Matthew 24:35). And when I look at my way and then I look at God’s way it’s very clear – God’s way is right and cannot be wrong. So when I chose to live my life God’s way and follow after Jesus it made all the difference.
Jesus showed me the truth. Sin is the result of a lie. That was the root of the first sin. God had told Adam and Eve that eating from the forbidden tree would result in death. The serpent told them that they would not die. They listened to the lie and everything has been downhill from there. Satan is still the father of lies (John 8:44) and he still works to deceive us into sin (2 Corinthians 11:3). Our only hope to escape the deception of sin is to accept the truth of Christ.
Jesus showed me the life. Everybody has an idea of what life is supposed to be. Most often that idea is influenced by the social standards of our world. The problem is that when we let the world influence our idea of what life is supposed to be we become less like Jesus and more like the world. But Jesus taught us to deny self (Matthew 16:24), love God and others (Matthew 22:37-40), and spend less time worrying about this life and more time worrying about the life to come (1 Timothy 6:12).
In John 13 Jesus was preparing His disciples for the fact that His time with them was coming to an end. As you can imagine they were worried about what the future held. To ease their minds He told them about heaven and then told them something that made every difference to them. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). It might seem so familiar to us but when we accept the full meaning of those words it will make all the difference to us.
-Andy
Thanks to Gift Habeshaw for sharing their work on Unsplash.