Christ, All In All
Colossians 3:11
11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
I am learning, watching, observing, waiting, listening, meditating, seeing, hearing, praying, worshipping. Through it all, I come back to ONE THING and ONE WAY - Jesus Christ.
We are off center. So off-center as Christians that we preach ideas, things, doctrines, thoughts, tradition, and so on and so on. Yet we don't actually preach the living reality of Christ Jesus. Him I want to preach. Him I will preach. He is reality. Over the past year I have made a turn-around to see how much of what I said was often focused on the peripherals, rather than Christ. Be it a conference revelation, a search for an angelic visitation, a new found glory or some such thing - they seemed to take the focus off of the simplicity of Christ and put it on someone or something else. I got lost but now I found Him and will continue to seek Him and Him alone. In Him is found everything I need.
He is the center of the wheel, so to speak and all else are the spokes coming off of the wheel. Rivers of Eden is bent on preaching Jesus Christ and His magnificence, His awesomeness (is that a word?), His majesty, His glory. As I think of it I am lost in the revelation of who He is and what He will reveal about Himself. He is all in all and He is in me.
On our recent visit to Italy, I kept thinking of the reality of Jesus Christ. Walking in the reality of Him, speaking of Him as reality. He is enough. So desperately people need Him. 2012 - He will be our focus in all we say and all we do. He is all in all. Is He all in all for you?
The simplicity of Christ Jesus being all in all and all in you settles you DOWN into Him. Do you get what I am saying? You are standing on the simplicity of the foundation of Christ Jesus and all He is and all He is in you. I am pondering all that it means. For in Him is the reality of my life. As I move in the world but not of the world I move in Him. As I listen to the cacophony of noise around me, I listen to only Him. He speaks through the chaos and He is clear and sure and real. He is reality. He is reality. That is the surety of the revelation I am seeking with every fiber of my being, for I have nothing else. Nothing else satisfies but Him and I see that in Him is everything.
While in one church service, sitting in the back, I watched and observed. I saw that in the preaching there was a lot of talk about Jesus, around Jesus, above Jesus but the reality of who He was seemed somewhat evasive. It seemed to me that they could preach about Jesus BUT they did not know Him deeply or intimately because what was reflected in their words were just words and not LIFE IN CHRIST. Our revelation is a mixture of stuff without the reality of the person. You can preach like this your entire life and never quite hit the mark. They seemed to miss the mark as many sermons do when the message is centered on the peripheral and not Him. I am not saying I know it all, but my eyes are being opened to see Him and know Him NOW and all flows from that NOW and in the FUTURE.
Once again, He is the wheel and the spokes come forth from the wheel. Paul says it best:
Colossians 1:15-18
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
We seek solutions to problems when we should seek Him. We seek a new experience when we should seek Him. We get bored and want something greater when He is enough and we should seek Him.
These are my thoughts for the day and more are coming, much more.
