Keeping Christ the focus

Mark Loughridge offers some powerful stuff at 3:17:

Sometimes we can view Jesus as a measles jab. You get the jab and then you can get on with life.

Sometimes we can view Jesus as a burden, like a brother or a sister who is always watching you ready to report back on everything you do.

That is not how the Bible portrays the Christian life. If all we needed was a measles jab to vaccinate us against sin, God would have sent a giant syringe. If all we needed was to be watched - well he could do that anyway. But he sent his son, who became a human being. Why did he do that? Not just to identify with us which is important, and vital, but to let us know that God wants us to relate to him. You can't relate to an idea, or to a force, or to a syringe. But you can relate to a person. Ands that what we have with Jesus - a relationship. And I think that this is one area that we miss out on. We are so conditioned to think of becoming a Christian as a step, but it's a journey. We think of it as a starting point followed by a list of rules, but it isn't. It's a whole new relationship - with God the Son.

It's a long post--texts from three talks Mark gave at a young people's weekend. But it's good stuff.