I was driving to work one day and I happened to briefly glance at one of the motorcycles beside me that had a very noticeable sticker “ONE WAY!”  In an instant, I thought … “JESUS!

“Jesus answered, “I am THE WAY and the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Many call God, God, but only those who believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, can come to The Father and call Him “Abba”.  This is so because even in the natural, for one to recognize a father, you yourself has to be a son or a daughter first.

“But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name.”  (John 1:12)

Having God the Father as our Heavenly Father means that we have a relationship with our Daddy God because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Apart from being in union with our Redeemer Jesus Who lives forevermore, one cannot enter boldly before His throne.  Only because we have been washed, cleansed, purified, justified and sanctified by the Power of the Blood of Jesus Christ, only by GRACE through faith we have been saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth and this is the truth … “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus Who gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:4-6).”  Indeed, only in Christ alone can . we come boldly before the throne of grace, to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

Because it happened at a crossroad, I focused all the more at the same motorcycle and saw an even bigger sticker on the other side, John 3:16 !   Hmmm … “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.” 

I meditated further on these two words, “ONE WAY!”  It means moving or allowing movement in one direction only.  Suddenly I had picture of a “fish trap” in my mind that is used for fishing.

A typical contemporary trap consists of a frame of thick steel wire in the shape of a heart, with chicken wire stretched around it. The mesh wraps around the frame and then tapers into the inside of the trap. When a fish swims inside through this opening, it cannot get out, as the chicken wire opening bends back into its original narrowness. (Wikipedia)

One of the most powerful stories in the Bible that describes this “one way” conversion is Paul’s, who was once called Saul.  He was a well known Pharisee, a member of the most strict and orthodox sect within Judaism.  He opposed the name of Jesus, imprisoned many of the holy believers by the authority of the chief priests.  He also cast his vote against them, sentencing them to death.  He punished them often in every Jewish meeting hall and attempted to force them to blaspheme.  He boiled rage against them, hunting them down in distant foreign cities to persecute them. He was authorized by the chief priests until his defining day and designated moment of encounter with Jesus Christ.

¹³ While traveling on the road at noon, Your Highness, I saw a light brighter than the sun flashing from heaven all around me and those who were with me. ¹⁴ We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic, saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are only hurting yourself when you resist your calling.’

¹⁵ “I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

“And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. ¹⁶ Get up and stand to your feet, for I have appeared to you to reveal your destiny and to commission you as my assistant. You will be a witness to what you have seen and to the things I will reveal whenever I appear to you. ¹⁷ I will rescue you from the persecution of your own people and from the hostility of the other nations that I will send you to. ¹⁸ And you will open their eyes to their true condition, so that they may turn from darkness to the Light  and from the power of Satan to the power of God. By placing their faith in me they will receive the total forgiveness of sins and be made holy, taking hold of the inheritance that I give to my children!’ (Acts 26:13-18 TPT)

He once was one of the most feared persecutors of believers, let alone one of the most learned men, properly trained in the Mosaic law and tutored by Rabbi Gamaliel according to their ancestral customs.

BUT God Who is rich in mercy and abounding in love had another plan for Paul.  With just ONE encounter with Jesus, transformation happened that was irreversible and irrevocable!  He was caught into the ONE WAY divine trap of continually knowing Jesus Christ until he considered all his previous knowledge as rubbish.  His love and passion for Jesus Christ and his revelation of Who He is empowered and graced him to write two-thirds of the Bible’s New Testament.  What a testimony indeed!

These were the words of Paul. 

“To truly know Him meant letting go of everything from my past and throwing all my boasting on the garbage heap. It’s all like a pile of manure to me now, so that I may be enriched in the reality of knowing Jesus Christ and embrace him as Lord in all of his greatness.

My passion is to be consumed with him and not clinging to my own “righteousness” based in keeping the written Law. My “righteousness” will be his, based on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ—the very righteousness that comes from God.  And I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus more fully and to experience the overflowing power of his resurrection working in me. I will be one with him in his sufferings and I will be one with him in his death.”  (Philippians 3:8-10 TPT)

Truly the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).   Just one glorious touch of God’s unmerited, unearned and undeserved favor sets us up into our divine destinies of being united with Christ in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, Who abides in us forever.

 ^“[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and Become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!” (Ephesians 3:19 AMPC)

How wondrous it is to think that we are called fishers of men  🙂