On my day off several weeks ago, I went to Starbucks to do some devotional reading. I brought with me a book on spiritual formation. This particular book, by a well known Christian author, was about cultivating the presence of God—kind of a modern version of Brother Lawrence’s Practicing the Presence of God.

The author focused on how God is always closer than we realize and discussed the different pathways by which people access God: intellect, beauty, contemplation, service, etc.

There  were many helpful things the author said, and he’d probably be orthodox in his confessional theology. But I slowly began to notice a glaring absence: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

I was especially struck with the difference between the emphasis of this book and the Letter to the Hebrews. I had read Hebrews 4:14–16 that day:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus is our great High Priest—the imagery literally dominates Hebrews. And it struck me that the New Testament is surging with language of atonement and sacrifice and cross and resurrection.

I’m guessing that the book’s author assumed his readers understood that Christ is the way to the Father. But in the New Testament this is not an assumption. It is an explicit declaration—a stunning and startling spiritual reality that is celebrated on virtually every page of the New Testament letters and epistles.

• “For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18).

• “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4–5).

• “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:17–19).

• “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:1-2).

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

Later that week I was freshly moved by an old hymn written by Horatius Bonar:

          Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
      Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
                 Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
     Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.
           Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
          Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
                 No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
     No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.
                  I praise the Christ of God; I rest on love divine;
          And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
               My Lord has saved my life and freely pardon gives;
           I love because He first loved me, I live because He lives.

As pastors and spiritual leaders, one of our greatest privileges is giving spiritual direction to others—helping them find God and cultivate His presence in their lives.

While there are many good things we can say about this, the one thing must never assume but must say and should always celebrate is this: Christ is the only way to God. Access to our heavenly Father’s throne comes solely through faith in Him.