Keeping the MAIN Thing the Main Thing

I had the privilege of attending Grace Community Church this morning and was blessed greatly by the message preached by the guest speaker Spencer DeBurgh. As Christians, especially those of us that are in environments that constantly propel and challenge our thinking theologically, it is easy to get sidetracked and focus on things that really in the grand scheme of things do not matter. Or as Christians, in the world, we can easily get distracted by the world's ways of thinking and acting and become disillusioned in our goals and aim.

DeBurgh preached from Ephesians 4:13:

12 For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Life is to be directed to an end...a goal...what is your aim in life? Have we ever seriously asked ourselves that question? As Christians we need to be confident of that aim and pursue it faithfully and fervently. It takes courage to stand apart, to set yourself aside from the world and pursue something that goes against the grain. The world will constantly try to challenge and convolute your goals and passions and trade your Godly desires for fruitless ones. So what should the Christian's aim be? CHRIST! That's it...Jesus Christ should be our aim. IN essence, we have complexified what God has simplified. Even in our theological knowledge we have come up with strategies and ways of thinking that have tried to make what is really basic, complex.

As Christians we are to attain or arrive at a destination. God is taking each one of us in Christ and aiming us towards the target...God has promised us our eternity but it takes a partnering in our daily life in which we rely on Him to live lives that are set apart and bringing glory to Him. He is working in and through us, sanctifying us, and conforming us more into the image of His Son so that we will become perfect or mature. What is that? Perfect or mature is growing up in the faith. God's goal for His kids is that we would grow up in the faith until we look like Jesus Christ. The glorified Christ is our standard.

How are we going to do this? We need more faith! We need to rely on the Body in order to be built up in the faith. And we need more knowledge. But lets remember that our goal is Christ. And in that we need to keep Him the focus. We musn't get distracted with things of this world, or things within the church or within theology or whatever it might be that will bring us away from Him, because after all He is the MAIN thing and we need to keep the MAIN thing the main thing!