Keeping the Focus on the One

I loved this email I got from a brother in Germany recently:

This whole last week I was listening to your Transition series and now the rest of our group got so interested that we all started to listen to it together. What a blessing! What an eye opener! We too realised that we have been focusing far too much on “home church” rather than on Jesus himself, so listening to this stuff is so exciting! I now almost feel like when I first got saved… easy, not ashamed, excited and full of love and life, and I never want to go back to anything else again.

How quick we are to take our eyes off of Jesus and put it on ‘the church’ in its myriad of expressions. When we do the life is lost, because there is life in no other but the Son. There are lots of ways believers can gather and encourage each other. But at the heart of it, Jesus must have first place in all things. That’s what makes the church, the church! It isn’t where we meet or how we meet, but the church ‘gathers’ around the supremacy of Christ. Read Colossians 1 again some time and bask in the simple joy that Jesus is the first born of the new creation.

Where we are focused on him we get to experience the life of the church with him. When we are focused on any other thing, including whatever church model we’re trying to implement, we’ll only get to experience the model. What a horrible trade-off, in my view!

8 thoughts on “Keeping the Focus on the One”

  1. I’m almost sure I know this brother from Germany, we spoke to each other on the phone last monday. We discussed the transition series and “the Shack”. Wonderful how Father connects us al over the world!!

    Fred
    Almere, Holland

  2. I’m almost sure I know this brother from Germany, we spoke to each other on the phone last monday. We discussed the transition series and “the Shack”. Wonderful how Father connects us al over the world!!

    Fred
    Almere, Holland

  3. What a wonderful comment this is……

    “I now almost feel like when I first got saved… easy, not ashamed, excited and full of love and life, and I never want to go back to anything else again.”

    I sure appreciate this brother’s joy….

    Grace and peace,

    Todd

  4. What a wonderful comment this is……

    “I now almost feel like when I first got saved… easy, not ashamed, excited and full of love and life, and I never want to go back to anything else again.”

    I sure appreciate this brother’s joy….

    Grace and peace,

    Todd

  5. I have been so encouraged, like my friend from Germany, infused with the life of my Savior. Interestingly, some friends that I meet with weekly have noticed a difference in how I look at things and have started to ask me about it. What Papa is beginning to do in my circle of friends is very exciting! I wake up everyday excited to see what Papa is going to do today.

    Not only that, but the distorted, broken picture I had of God the Father is being restored, so that I can call Him “Daddy” and not get upset because of the abuse of my earthly daddy.

    Rejoicing in His tender embrace….. Lucia

  6. I have been so encouraged, like my friend from Germany, infused with the life of my Savior. Interestingly, some friends that I meet with weekly have noticed a difference in how I look at things and have started to ask me about it. What Papa is beginning to do in my circle of friends is very exciting! I wake up everyday excited to see what Papa is going to do today.

    Not only that, but the distorted, broken picture I had of God the Father is being restored, so that I can call Him “Daddy” and not get upset because of the abuse of my earthly daddy.

    Rejoicing in His tender embrace….. Lucia

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