Jesus at the Center
I want Jesus to be the center of everything…
the center of my life
the center of my family’s life
the center of the Church
the center of my work
We live in a world with so many distractions… and let’s not forget our adversary,
who loves to use those distractions to try and pull us a way from Jesus.
One distraction I have found to be a hindrance- a roadblock- in my Christ-centered life is getting involved with too much. Being too busy can be a tool the enemy uses, and one that is a common struggle for most people. Personally, I’m active in a lot of different groups, meetings at work and at church. All the things I’m a part of are great causes and have great meaning, but the tasks and time that each one of those things takes can take over my true purpose very quickly.
I have found, when I try and put an order of importance on my priorities and stick to that order, I sometimes fail miserably.
I tend to allow all these good, meaningful things to become the center of what I am doing instead of Christ being the center of all I do.
There is a difference.
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Intentional Spirituality | Focused Meditation
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on it he meditates daily…
To help with this, I meditate on the words to understand better what God intended in giving them to us.
Pastor Jon would say, “Let them marinate.”
So too is the progression of sin. It can look like this:
- We look to the crowd- the world- and start listening to their advice (…council of the wicked)
- We justify wrong behaviors, instead of evaluating the advice of God’s absolute Truth
- We begin to slow down, stop to accept the advice, believe all the lies and do what the ungodly do (…stand in the same way as sinners)
- After sinning repeatedly and ignoring the conviction of the Holy Spirit, we begin to sit comfortably in the sin, justifying behavior we know is wrong and often even begin to defend the behavior to others or in secret (…sit in the seat of mockers)
But then Psalm 1:2 goes on to say …but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on it he meditates daily. So while the Psalm warns about the propensity for sin to creep in to our daily lives, verse 2 tells us that by being in the Word (the Bible) we delight in the law of the Lord.
This means that by being in the Word consistently, we are directly connected to the Source of Life itself.
We are not just understanding absolute Truth, but actually delighting in it!
Eighteen years ago I didn’t look forward to my long drive to work, but I can now say that this drive continues to be a real blessing. It has provided the time I may not have otherwise carved out for my daily spiritual feeding and meditation. My time in the car encourages my intentional and focused discipline and draws me closer to my Savior.
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