The best way for me to explain our relationship with Christ and God is like this... Christ is the rear sights of a gun and God is the front sights. If you don’t look through the sights, you don’t hit the target at all. If you focus on the rear sights, you miss the target by a bit because you lose track of the front sight. Focus on the target and you miss the center, the point, of the shoot. When you focus on the front sight, by looking through the rear sight, we reach our target point. Christ is the rear sight, God is the front (focal point), and the target is the marriage supper.

Christ is God in flesh and is the door to God. He is the lamb of God, our sacrifice. I wanted to make that clear. While Christ is all this, He is not the front sight, the target, or goal. Stay with me. Let’s look at Scripture.

1150258_734559226613954_8618707575740106413_n

The church focuses on the Spirit but nowhere does the Bible put the focus on the Spirit. The Spirit does not put the focus on Himself but rather onto God (1 Cor 2:10-12); and unto Christ (John 16:13-14; John 14:26). If this is true, why is our focus on the Spirit?

The church focuses on Christ and His death but Christ did not do anything of Himself (John 5:19). Christ never pointed the focus at Himself but rather, everything about Christ was about God - “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18 NKJV). From the beginning, the whole focus on Christ and of Christ has been a pursuit of God - Jesus said to him, “ I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6 NKJV)

Everything about the Gospel is a focus towards a relationship with God. That relationship does not come from a prayer and ask Jesus in your heart. That relationship comes from Christ, who died for our sin that divides that relationship, and who gave us an example of how we are to live in this relationship (1 Cor 11:1; Eph 5:1-2; Col 3:13; 1 Peter 2:21). Does this come down to legalism and works? Absolutely not. Let me put it into a modern context.

All through the Gospel, “salvation” is looked at as a marriage. Christ is the groom, we are the bride. We are to be clothed in white linen. Notice what Revelation says about this:

And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, FOR THE FINE LINEN IS THE RIGHTEOUS ACTS OF THE SAINTS.
(Revelation 19:8 NKJV)

Keeping in this picture of marriage, and this understanding of the relationship. Let’s look at our physical lives.

When I was single, I did things I wanted to do. I hung out with people I wanted to hang out with. I bought things I wanted; things I found pleasure in. I went where I wanted and when I wanted. I talked about the things I was doing, the things I was buying, or wanted to buy, and the likes. Suddenly, this little redhead caught my eye; and man did my life change. I no longer went here and there, I wanted to spend time with her. I thought about her all the time and I couldn’t wait to get out of work to go spend time with her. I talked about her with my friends and at work. My spending habits changed and I started spending money on her and not on myself. I started studying her and learning about her. I even quit drinking and smoking for her. Nothing about this is works or legalism.

I’m sure you're already seeing the fault of our falling for this false gospel of America. If we are pursuing God, desiring a relationship with God, why do we continue to do what we want? Why does the way we spend money not change? Why do we not pursue a knowledge of who He is? Why is spending time with God a chore rather than a pleasure that we can't wait to get to? Why are we not willing to put down the things that hinder that relationship - sin?Truth is, we never really entered a relationship with God because we focus on the death of Christ and the gifts of the Spirit and not on the target which is God. Because we focus on the death of Christ, we stop short of what the goal is. We’ve become ever learning, but never come to the knowledge of the truth and that causes of to be lovers of our own selves, loving the pleasures of this world, more than God (2 Tim 3:1-7; 1 Cor 15:34). We think we are rich but we actually are wrenched because we focus on Christ died for our sin and never really stop sinning (Rev 3:17). That makes us guilty of treating the death of Christ as a common thing, treading His blood underfoot, and putting Him to open shame (Heb 6:6; Heb 10:29).

The church thinks they are seeing moves of God but they are not. What is happening in the church is not compared to what happened in the Bible. If the people of the church could only get this truth and enter into a real, full-blown, relationship with God, they would see what it really means to be surrounded by a move of God. Let's get our focus on the front sight.
RapidWeaver Icon

Made in RapidWeaver