What does it mean to know someone, I mean really know someone? Certainly it means we know of them. It also means we know more than that, it means we know things about that someone. But really knowing someone goes beyond just having facts in the head right?
In Exodus 33:13 Moses makes this request of God.
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.
He wants to know God. He wants to really know Him in a deeply personal and intimate sense. So he asks for God to teach him His ways. That is very interesting to me. For Moses, to really know God meant more than simply knowing about Him, it meant more than being in a relationship with Him, it meant knowing His ways. It meant being committed to living his life in such a way that his life clearly reflected that relationship in how he lived.
When we really know someone this inevitably happens doesn’t it? We want to know their ways. The more important a person is to us, the more that person is going to influence our thought, talk, behavior, decisions, and relationships.
What is true in our interpersonal relationships is also true with God. If we really want to know God, we will ask Him to show us His ways. The more we think like Him, act like Him, love like Him, and conduct ourselves like Him and respond like Him, the more we will know Him.
Because of this, Scripture in numerous places talks about the desire to know God by knowing His ways.
Psalms 25:4 (NIV) Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths.
Psalms 27:11 (NIV) Teach me your way, LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
Psalms 103:7 (NIV) He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.
The word “way” in the Hebrew literally means path or road. When it is used figuratively as it is in these verses it means a way of life. Keeping the way of the Lord (Genesis 18:19), the way of wisdom (Proverbs 4:11), the way of righteousness (Proverbs 8:20), and the way of peace (Isaiah 59:8) all refer to a lifestyle, a way of living.
Conversely we are told to avoid the way of the wicked (Proverbs 4:19), the way of the fool (Proverbs 12:15), the way of the unfaithful (Proverbs 13:15), the way of the sluggard (Proverbs 15:19), and the way of the adulterous woman (Proverbs 30:20).
We also see the equating of way with how we live in Jeremiah 6:16,
This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”
So when we come to John 14:6 where Jesus said I am the way, this major theme throughout the Old Testament that equated “way” with a “way of living” would not have been absent from the mind of Jesus or His disciples. Jesus certainly meant here that faith in Him was the way to the Father. But I think he meant more than that.
If we look at the greater context, just a few verses earlier in John 13:34-35 He said, A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. The way to the Father means knowing Him through His Son. Yes. But knowing the Son means knowing (living) His ways, i.e., loving one another as I have loved you. Jesus not only made the way to the Father clear by His atoning death on the cross, He showed us the way to the father by showing us the Father’s way: living a life of love to God and neighbor.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 