A Jesus-Centered People?

When we say that we are a Jesus-centered people, do we truly understand the implications of what that means?

To be Jesus-centered means to be Scripture-centered. Jesus loved the Scriptures. Every word that came out of His mouth was Scripture. In fact, Jesus Himself is the living Word and that means that the entire Bible is embodied in the person and work of Jesus.  All of it...from the opening lines of “In the beginning God…” to the closing lines, “...Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” Every word is written by Jesus and preserved by Jesus for us. So to be Jesus-centered means that we love the Bible and hold to all of the Bible as truth. To be Jesus-centered means that we sit under the authority of the entire canon of Scripture.  Even the parts that we don’t like and don’t fit into our cultural mindset.

To be Jesus-centered means that all else is secondary to Him. To be Jesus-centered means that our denominational loyalties, our church loyalties, our relationship loyalties are secondary to Jesus, His Word and His truth.

To be Jesus-centered means that we are loyal and subject only to our King Jesus...the One who redeemed us, died for us, and called us to be His own. That His people are our people, that His work is our work.

To be Jesus-centered means that we are in the business of reconciling people to God, first and foremost. Because that is what Jesus came here to do...to reconcile people to God.  Jesus’ primary purpose in coming to earth was to reconcile us to God. He used the physical realm...healing, feeding, miraculous works as a means to a greater end, not the end itself. He was about the greater need of all people, their spiritual need, and that is our calling as well. To be Jesus-centered we will use the physical needs of people to get to their ultimate need of being reconciled to God.

To be Jesus-centered is to be gospel-centered. The good news of God’s gospel to this world is Jesus. To be Jesus-centered is to rest completely on the finished work of Jesus Christ...on His death, burial, and resurrection for the payment of the penalty of our sins, and His perfectly righteous life as the gift of righteousness that we receive because on our very best day our own righteousness is as filthy rags. To be Jesus-centered means that these truths are at the core of all that we believe, and are the motivation for all that we do and all that we say.

To be Jesus-centered means that we understand, believe and live that Jesus is the answer to all things...that Jesus is the answer to the issue of injustice. Jesus is the answer to poverty. Jesus is the answer to oppression. To be Jesus-centered means that we believe that the answer to all that is wrong in this world is Jesus and that He and He alone is the only solution. 

So...are we truly a Jesus-Centered people? Or have we side-lined Jesus and raised up our own ideologies, beliefs, ethics, and systems of religion to the place of center? Is it Jesus that we find our identity in or is it our religious denominations or churches? Is it Jesus that we submit to for Lordship or is it our own ways of thinking or our cultural understandings?  A Jesus-centered people...we claim that, but is it functionally true?