Making Christ Our 1st Principle, Part 1
Notice that when we talk about the gospel, it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not the Gospel of __________ (insert your name). The Gospel is primarily about Him. The J.B. Phillips' translation of Colossians 1:15-20 makes this clear. It reads,
"Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. He existed before creation began, for it was through him that every thing was made, whether spiritual or material, seen or unseen. Through him, and for him, also, were created power and dominion, ownership and authority. In fact, every single thing was created through, and for him. He is both the First Principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of creation. And now he is the head of the body, which is composed of all Christian people. Life from nothing began through him, and life from the dead began through him, and he is, therefore, justly called the Lord of all. It was in him that the full nature of God chose to live, and through him God planned to reconcile in his own person, as it were, everything on earth and everything in Heaven by virtue of the sacrifice of the cross."
Your life is primarily about Him. Everything you do is primarily about Him (see Psalm 51:4). He created, saved, adopted, and made us His friends. He owns us, rules over us, and disciplines us. He rejoices over us with singing and promises that He will always love us no matter what.
This means Jesus needs to be first in our minds and affections. We are never to use Christ to get something else. For example, my goal for getting close to Christ shouldn’t be avoiding punishment, or to get good things from Him, or to win over the love of my life, etc. Christ is not a means to an end. He is our end.
The more we see Christ as our end, the more time we will spend studying, thinking about, praising, and thanking Him. When we work, engage our families and friends, serve others, enjoy hobbies, or do anything, we are to do it in a way that pleases Him. This is the natural response to all that He’s done for us.
A byproduct of focusing on Him more than anything else is that we become like Him, we get distance from stubborn sins, we rejoice in real suffering, and we get joyful. In other words, a byproduct of focusing on Him is living closer to how we were designed to live.
Being focused primarily on Him is a discipline. It is a practice. We must be intentional about it because Believers get so easily distracted.
How do we develop this discipline? In our next blog post, we will unpack different ways to tangibly make Christ our first principle.
Prayer: Jesus, you are first. You are the only One worthy of being first. Thank you for being so much greater than anything we can think about. We will spend eternity praising and thanking you and move to higher levels of joy. Please help us get a growing taste for that while we live here on earth. Lord, teach us to discipline our minds to focus on you throughout the day. Teach us how to keep you in the back of our minds while we do the things you have for us to do each day. You are the awesome, Almighty, and glorious God. We are so fortunate to be your children.
Chew On This:
What would be different about your life if you primarily focused on Christ?