To Whom Shall We Go?

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

TO WHOM SHALL WE GO

John 6:67-71

67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!"  71(He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)
NIV

There is no doubt that Jesus chose those twelve men to be special men in the plan of God to bring the Good News to the rest of the world. Jesus selected each of them, called them out of their daily lives to follow, to learn from him, to be men who would change the world. Some people today would say that all men are chosen by God, that is the only people who can be saved are those chosen by God, but we know that simply is not true, for all men may be saved, Jesus died for the whole world, not just few those twelve and the others chosen by God. But in this conversation we should focus on the question Jesus asked, and the response of Peter. From this question of Jesus, it is apparent men may leave him. We just say many turn back from following Jesus because they thought his teaching was too difficult. Now he is giving his chosen twelve that opportunity to leave as well. That surely implies men has the free will to walk away from Jesus, therefore man also has the free will to follow Jesus. Peter had it right when he responded, “To whom shall we go?” Jesus asks us that same question, if we what to leave him too. It does seem rather odd to thing we, as believers would turn back, yet some have as so we should be aware it is possible for us to turn back too. What would we turn back too? It would seem obvious we would turn back to a life of sin, doing whatever we wanted to do without restrictions, yet turning back might also be as simply as just being self-reliant, living under the same principles of the world, rather than trusting God. Turning back might be as simply as turning back to a life of following rules and regulations set forth by a denominations interpretation of selected scriptures, or rather their rules and regulations and selected scriptures they chose to prove their position. There are all sorts of ways of life we could turn back to, but to whom shall we go? Jesus has the words of eternal life. We believe and know he is the Holy One of God. Could Judas be the only one who ever betrayed Jesus? When we turn to living under the law, under the rules and regulations for finding a righteous life, are we betraying Jesus? When we based our righteousness on a check list of do’s and don’ts are we betraying Jesus? Yes we should endeavor to live in a manner that pleases God, and we should refrain from anything which could be labeled as sin, but we cannot ever be perfect, we cannot ever be good enough, we cannot ever find righteousness in anything but faith in Jesus. We cannot ever turn back to any way of living we knew before coming to Jesus, we must live completely in him, for to whom shall we go?