CHRIST-CENTRED

Nathaniel Froese, Interim Westhills Site Pastor

I wonder if you have noticed in yourself just how cyclical the spiritual life is. No matter how much I have grown, it feels like the entire course of my walk with Jesus is marked, not by continuously uncovering new stuff to work on with the Lord, but by re-learning the same 2 or 3 lessons.

The more I think about it, it's perhaps more proper to say that my spiritual walk is just oscillating. My faith seems to swing back and forth between being reminded of the central importance of Jesus (that apparently is all too easy for me to lose sight of) and being reminded that to follow Jesus is also to care about the stuff that Jesus cares about (meaning I've got to learn more about managing my finances as a Christian, being a good husband, being a good employee, having the right theology, caring enough about the right stuff from a biblical perspective, and all for the purpose of being more Christlike in the areas that Jesus teaches me to care about).

But something seems to get lost in translation as I swing from being reminded of the central importance of Jesus to caring about the things Jesus cares about. I often feel convicted when my faith oscillates back toward Jesus at the center because it feels like so often, in caring about the things Jesus cares about, I forget that I am only meant to care about them insofar as Jesus teaches me to. So, my image of the “perfect family” that I'm aiming for, or whatever it is that Jesus has taught me to grow in, becomes the end itself. Good though these things may be, when left untethered from the Lord, this is the most cunning form of idolatry we humans have contrapted.

We pray the Alliance vision prayer every weekend together and as we continue to work through this prayer in the To The Pointe, I'd like to suggest that it is precisely the dynamic above that we are praying about when we pray the next part of the prayer. We want to be transformed by the Lord as Todd explained, with the goal of being Christ Centered.

A theologian once wrote that “to know Christ is to know his benefits”. This is what I am describing above. Jesus teaches us about the stuff he cares about. Sometimes we Christians just get stuck caring about the benefits more than the Lord. So while it is true that to know Christ is to know his benefits, it is beyond a doubt that to know Christ's benefits does not guarantee that you know Christ. As we grow and are transformed by the Lord, the starting place of transformation is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, nothing else.

The founder of the Alliance, A.B. Simpson, has a hymn that captures being Christ centered beautifully. He himself has long been considered one of the most central examples of Alliance and Evangelical spirituality. If you get the chance, I would highly suggest praying through the whole hymn, but for here just the first few lines will do:

Once it was the blessing,
now it is the Lord;
once it was the feeling,
now it is His Word;
once His gift I wanted,
now, the Giver own;
once I sought for healing,
now Himself alone.
All in all forever,
only Christ I'll sing;
ev'rything is in Christ,
and Christ is ev'rything.

Notice, the blessing, the feeling, the gift, the healing, not one of these things are bad, but not one of these things is the Lord. As we pray to be Christ centered, we are boldly asking the Lord to transform us to have Christ be the center of our lives. With such an ask is inevitably also the recognition that something, even something good, could be occupying the center of our lives that is not the Lord, and ought not be so central.

So, God, we humbly ask, because we long for you, that you would come and transform us to be Christ centered. Give us the humility that is required to notice when we are not.