Is Jesus Your Center?

It is easiest to be civil and polite with those whom you don’t know. It is easy to show off your best side and all your wonderful talents to those with whom you don’t usually spent much time. However, the most crucial test we must pass in this life is how we are practicing our Christianity at home. You see, those whom we love the deepest, we’ve also probably hated the most. Those who easily anger us are probably the people we most love and are indispensable to us. The closest relationships you develop will trigger the deepest emotional responses you have experienced in this life. This brings me to this lesson:

You cannot be a true disciple unless you are a practicing disciple in your own home FIRST!

Don’t forget the PRIORITIES:

Mark 12:30-31

30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.”

1- God

a. The first four commandments help you to establish your relationship with God

b. Heart – You shall have no other gods before me

c. Soul – You shall not make for yourself idols

d. Mind – Don’t misuse the name of the Lord

e. Strength – Keep the Sabbath Holy

2- You

3- Your neighbor

a. The last 6 commands establish our relationship with our neighbors in this order:

b. Home: Father and Mother

i. Honor your Father and your Mother

c. Home: Spouse

i. You shall not commit adultery

d. Neighbors

i. You shall not murder

ii. You shall not steal

iii. Don’t give false testimony

iv. Don’t covet anything your neighbor has

For those of you who are married your spouse is your first ministry.

Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

For those of you who are living with your parents or other people, wherever you make your home, is your first ministry.

1Tim. 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

You cannot pretend to be a good disciple at work, or at school, or within the fellowship of believers unless you are a Christian who receives praises from your own spouse and children concerning your love and devotion for Christ.

Proverbs 31:28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her…

So how do we make sure that Jesus is at our center, that we are inviting Jesus every day for dinner along with our family, that He is our Head?

This means that in your private, personal relationships with your family members, you are a living example of righteous judgment (conviction [strong belief]), penitence (repentance), confession (evangelism) and perseverance (get back on track if you’ve fallen out!).

These are four of the five “life or death” teachings we find in the Bible. Let’s examine them:

1- Conviction: This is a strong belief. A type of belief that leads to action. A type of belief expressed by a changed mind; a mind that no longer holds to what it knows is wrong or useless, but that clings to what it knows is right.

a. Conviction causes you to take a lesser paying job because you want to serve your family better, or your church better

b. Conviction causes you to keep your eyes and mind holy when watching something on TV, or to make holy choices in what you view or hear.

c. Conviction causes you to send the entire amount of your savings to a missionary you know is doing God’s work in some other country as opposed to keeping it for yourself to buy something you really don’t need.

2- Penitence: The expression of conviction. Penitence does not only require openness (first step) in confessing what troubles your conscience (transparency), but what makes penitence (repentance) complete is carrying it through. This is why conviction must be in place before there is ever any real penitence.

a. Penitence causes you to always take the first step in reconciliation even when the other party initiated the wrongdoing.

b. Penitence enables you to walk in humility as opposed to pride.

c. Penitence allows you to seek to exalt others before yourself.

3- Confession: Not only do we confess our belief in Christ through our words but also in our lifestyle. The confession of our faith began when we initially got baptized, and cannot stop until we are resurrected.

a. Confession allows you to always preach the Gospel wherever you go.

b. Your confession of your faith keeps your vow to Jesus always in your mind, filtering other worldly thoughts.

c. Confession keeps you involved in the job assignment God gave you when you gave your life to Him.

4- Perseverance: This is the unending commitment we have made to obey God (act justly), love mercy and walk humbly with Him (Micah 9:8).

a. Perseverance allows you to get up after stumbling or falling, despite any shame your actions may have caused you or guilt you may still carry in your heart.

b. Because you persevere is the reason you keep your head in all situations, even when it seems everything around you is falling apart.

c. Perseverance allows you to take in rebuke and correction, knowing it will lead you to eternal life.

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Of course the fifth “life or death” teaching is Baptism. Of all of these, Baptism is the only one we do once! All the others need to be continual.

Do you see how these work together? How they build into each other? They build upon each other, which is why they are part of the life or death teachings in the Bible.

When someone asks for prayers because they are in emotional distress, or because they are suffering through a difficult time in their life, or for their attitude at work or school, or asks for prayers for their relationship with their boss to improve, or with a particular brother or sister; I am hearing that their relationship with God needs to be refocused. All other relationships you have outside your home must reflect what goes on, or what has gone on in your homes, and what goes on in your home reflects the relationship you have with God!

When I was baptized and returned to my home, I realized I needed to change how I spoke and behaved with my mother. Some mental transformation needed to happen, some paradigm shifting needed to take place so that my repentance would continue to be true.

When I got married, I realized again that I needed some deeper, further transformation. Thank God I had already worked on my relationship with my parents before that!

Now that I have a child, I realize what a blessing it will be for further generations of my family, since I am passing down some values and behaviors that will have generational impact!

You see, at each level of the relationship paradigm that Mark 12:30, 31 (The Greatest Command) speaks of, I need to make sure Jesus is at the center. When He is not, something in your life will not function properly until you make Him the center, until you give Him all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

When you are worried only about yourself and what you do at the moment, without any regard for those around you or how your example and actions impact others, (i.e., the generational impact you will have), you are being a superficial, fruitless person. Fruitless because your actions and creeds will have died with you when you leave this life and all you have left for the rest of the generations is death.

Remember that Jesus describes the qualities of a Christian as fruit, in other words, you will see the fruit in the generations to come, not necessarily at the moment.

The entire 2nd chapter of 1st John is based on the Greatest Command.

So remember the relationship priorities, and the life and death actions that will keep you with Jesus, making you a most fruitful and impacting disciple, the salt of the earth and the light of the world! (Matthew 5:13, 14)