Joe thought to himself, “I am totally frustrated as a believer. I try real hard to live a Christ-Centered life, but I find myself frequently failing to keep Him at the center of my life. I get all caught up in my daily life and problems and I spend more time thinking about everyday life than Christ.”
How do believers go about living a Christ-Centered life?
Is it putting Him first above all human relationships?
Are we to always be talking about Him throughout the day as we interact with those in our lives?
Is it trying to live as He lived while on earth?
Maybe if we witness, obey the Bible, have our devotions daily, faithfully attend our church, help those in need, or disciple other believers, we will be more Christ-Centered.
There seem to be so many options, that we find ourselves struggling to put Christ first and to keep Him there in our daily lives.
Christ-Centeredness in definitely the Biblical goal for our lives as we see in Col. 1:18:
“He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”
He is to have first place in our lives. The question we need to ask is what is true Biblical Christ-Centeredness?
This question is answered by 1 Cor. 1:30:
“By His doing you are in Christ Jesus.”
Did you catch that?
The moment we trusted Christ as our Savior, God the father put us in Christ, thereby centering us in Christ.
The Bible also says in Colossians 1:27:
“to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Father not only put us in Christ, but He put Christ in us, in our human spirit.
Because of this, Christ is already the center and core of our life.
Actually Colossians 3:4 says: “Christ, who is our life,” so He is our very life.
So Christ-Centeredness is not about me trying to place Christ at the center of my life and seeking to keep Him there, that approach is energy of the flesh.
We need to learn and remind ourselves that our life is already centered in Him because God put us in Him and Him in us.
This is all by grace, God did it and it will never change and remains true even if our thoughts and feelings don’t always line up with this truth.
If we realize we already have a Christ-Centered life, we can live it out by faith.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler