Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.
It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.
Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.
Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.
What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person.
Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.
I know for many the names Viola and Sweet alone invoke vitriol. But aside from what you think about them and what you believe they mean by these words, the above is beautiful and true.
Our message this morning revolved around the question, "Do you long for Christmas or Christ?" As humans, we are made to long for Jesus and we become what we desire and long for.
As A.W. Tozer wrote in The Pursuit of God;
God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live in Him and draw our life from His smile.
And Thomas Merton;
Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
And finally, Jeremiah 29:13. "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart."
Let us therefore long for Christ and seek Him and His Kingdom above all.
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