What's at the Core of Your Life?
If it isn't Jesus, it's almost assuredly you.
“I did it!” Peyton said.
“Did what?” Chloe replied.
“Joined a religion.”
“A what?”
“A religion. I saw a church when I was driving home yesterday, and I felt like it was calling to me. So, I stopped and talked to the pastor and now I’m a Christian,” Peyton explained.
“I see,” Chloe said. “That was sudden. Why did you do that? You’ve never mentioned wanting to join a religion before.”
“I just thought I needed it. I spend all my time working, going to the gym, dating, and hanging out with you, and I just felt like I didn’t have anything happening in the ‘spirituality’ department. So, I solved it. I think it will help give me a moral compass, which the world really seems to be missing these days.”
“Does this mean you’re going to become a ‘little goody two shoes” and start changing everything about your life?” Chloe asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. I’m just going to go to church on Sunday and that’s it. I won’t change anything else.”
Maybe you’ve heard a discussion like this before. Maybe you were one of the participants.
It’s not unusual for people to want to check the box in the “spirituality department.” Humans are created in the image of God and we all want to find our way back to him. We all yearn for a satisfying spiritual life. And so we seek spiritual fulfillment in all sorts of places. Yes, sometimes Christianity, but Buddhism, New Age, and Christian-ish cults are also popular in America.
When people talk like this, they are making a huge assumption about how life works. Whether they admit it or not, they believe that life revolves around them. They collect things in their orbit and they expect those things to feed them. Those things can be almost anything — family, career, exercise, and spirituality are all common. Wealth, celebrity, and power are classical favorites, too.
The graphic below shows those some of those things surrounding a person, with the arrows pointing inward, toward the center, where the person sits.
When someone lives this way, the things that surround them are carefully selected and put in orbit to make them feel more satisfied, comfortable, and self-important. When people live this way, even if they fill the spirituality circle with word “Christian,” they see these things as helping them achieve what they want to achieve. All these things are different means to achieve their own desired ends.
And so, when they have a problem, they pray for a solution, and they start attending church regularly. But as they move past that problem and things start going well again, they don’t need anything from the spirituality circle at that time. So, they stop praying and they stop going to church. Instead, they look for something else to feed them, career or family, perhaps.
But there is another way to live. We can choose to put Jesus in the center of our lives. We can make him the primary focus of our attention. Rather than seeking our own happiness, we can first seek Jesus’s happiness. And when we do that, Jesus will expand to work in all those other facets of our life.
Suddenly, we’re not just going to a job to build our career to get a promotion to earn more money so that we can be fulfilled. Rather, we’re going to a job that Jesus chose for us, where we can contribute meaningfully to the world and to those co-workers who need to hear about Jesus. We’re not just having a family so that we can check that box but because raising the next generation to take their places as members of the Kingdom of God is critically important.
Going to church is no longer about what I can get from Jesus but instead becomes about worshipping God himself. Even something like exercise takes on a new dimension, not merely being about weight loss or looking good to others, but about building and maintaining the body that Jesus says is the home of the Holy Spirit for all Christians.
When we are the center of our lives, all our motivations are ultimately self-centered. But when Jesus is the center of our lives, our motives naturally become his motives. And in return, it allows Jesus to bless us with outcomes we never imagined for ourselves. We trade striving for satisfaction. Rather than trying to achieve something so that the world will notice us, we accept the fact that Jesus has already noticed us and loves us thoroughly. Once the God of creation knows you and accepts you as you are, there’s nobody left to impress.
So, think about who sits at the core of your life. Even if you’re a Christian, the person at the core might still be you, not Jesus. Maybe it’s time to make that switch.
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Great article. And the graphics really help to convey your points.
"expect those things to feed them"
Interesting phrasing considering how often evangelicals change churches because they're "not getting fed".
God wants to alter you not affirm you.
Great article.