Intoxicated with the Glorious Unveiling

Frank Viola's article in The Ooze this week really stirred me today. His article is refreshingly confessional about how he's been infatuated with so many spiritual things flowing from Jesus, rather than Christ himself. It's made me reflect on how often I miss Jesus in the midst of all of the Jesus-stuff: the working for Him, the reading about Him, all of his good and crazy natural and supernatural gifts. As we count the days to Christmas, and often bemoan how the world has missed the point of the Day, I'm pointed back to my own heart and how often I miss Jesus, too.

"The Deep Ecclesiology of the Body" is excerpted from Frank's newest book, God’s Ultimate Passion: Unveiling the Purpose Behind Everything:

As I survey the landscape of modern Christianity, it seems to me that spiritual things and objects have replaced the Person of Christ. The doctrines, gifts, graces, and virtues that we so earnestly seek have substituted for Jesus Himself. We look to this gift and that gift . . . we study this truth and that truth . . . we seek to appropriate this virtue and that virtue, but all along we fail to find Him.

When the Father gives us something, it’s always His Son. When the Son gives us something, it’s always Himself. This insight greatly simplifies the Christian life. Instead of seeking many spiritual things, we only seek Him. Our single occupation is the Lord Jesus Christ. He becomes our only pursuit. We do not seek Divine things, we seek a Divine Person. We do not seek gifts, we seek the giver who embodies all the gifts. We do not seek truth, we seek the incarnation of all truth.

God has given us all spiritual things in His Son...
To put it candidly, you will never have an authentic experience of the Body of Christ unless your foundation is blindly and singularly Jesus Christ. Church life is born when a group of people are intoxicated with a glorious unveiling of their Lord. The chief task of a Christian leader, therefore, is to present a Christ to God’s people that they have never known, dreamed, or imagined... Read the whole thing.

Old school Jesus image from the cute: Jesus of the Week site

Tags: Jesus, Christmas, church