First (An Exhortation)

The Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run to Him and they are safe. We have been made righteous not by our own actions or who we are, but by who Christ is and by what He has done, and nothing more, nothing less. We have been saved, and this connotes that we have not only had our sins taken away from us as the east is away from the west forever… No, that’s only part of the salvation that we have in Christ.

For salvation IS Christ Himself, alive in us, as we are alive in Him. Salvation is being one with our Savior, and not merely Christ giving us our salvation, but He Himself BEING our Salvation, infused with us, as we are alive in Him. There are so many ways for us to elaborate on this unity, this bond made perfect by the One who is perfect; Truth is, He is not just perfect, but everlasting, and infinite – which is why it is but appropriate to say that there will never be an end to the praises and the wonder and the joy and the life we have in Him.

And I tell you, I can keep going. The current status quo in church would have our eyes open towards blessings regarding circumstances birthed from this reality – blessings in cash, or in healing, or even in revelation or new ideas, and all that – but really, the first and ONLY blessing that matters is the blessing of Christ Himself. From the blessing who IS Christ, everything else makes more sense than we could ever hope, should we try to make sense of this reality and all of creation FROM creation itself – preposterous! No, it takes an infinite and eternal blessing for us to truly see the underlining glory in all things seen and unseen.

No matter what we say about making Christ first, or even no matter how we forget about it, Christ IS first, and the sooner we realize this, and the sooner we internalize this and just consume this eternal Truth, the more we see how everything else is second. We do not put ourselves ‘Second’, as at least one international ministry would have us do. No, it is the plain and simple truth that our being and all that is in this reality IS second – creation can NEVER hope to transcend above Creator.

And while we can certainly end the story there, the Truth goes further, in that Christ, who was first, became the last in order for those of us who were second – not exactly first – to be UNITED with the First and foremost.

Psychologists and motivational speakers would have us struggling to realize and materialize our passions. By default, all of us who have had a taste of the grace of God – all of us who have heard the living Word and have had the Word come alive – all of us in whom Christ has authored and will finish His faith – We have the awe and wonder, and more importantly, the passion of just enjoying who Christ is, and what He has done.

It’s where we start. And while we can certainly express the love which gives us vigor through song, dance, and music, it is but one avenue, a small percentage of the entire life we live as literal worship, which is, as Andrew Farley is always so fond of saying, each and every second we spend in this reality dependent on Christ.

This is why Paul says that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. For once, apart from God, all we did amounted to nothing – now, we are living, breathing, vessels of worship, living testimonies of the goodness of God through Christ and His finished work – 100% worshiping and raising sweet aromas unto our Creator, 100% of the time, in each and every second, unto forever.

Again, there will never be an end to the praises and the wonder and the joy and the life we have in Christ. We see things and people and situations, we see what the world calls blessings and curses, we see circumstances, either to our favor or not – we see ALL these things for what they are, SECOND the the First, who loved us first.

And it’s not to say that we have some sort of superiority over anyone or anything else in this reality. No… when we remember how absolutely miserly and hopeless we were without Christ, and when we remember how Christ, from His infinite glory, willingly fell to the absolute lowest – King of Kings became sin of sins; No, this Truth leads us not to be smug, but to be absolutely grateful and relieved, and consequently seeing anyone and anything in this reality as someone or something, no, creation that Christ sees worthy to reconcile to the Creator.

By Christ we stand still even in the strongest of storms, yet by Christ we also move when the world would try to drag us down. By Christ we no longer are answerable to fear, but on the flip side we move forth in perfect love.

Brother in Christ, Sister in Christ, I implore you, know of your reconciliation to God through Christ. There is no sweeter Truth, no stronger Foundation than Christ Himself.