simply settled

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
Thomas Merton

(cattail / Julie Cook / 2016)

I posed a question yesterday…
or actually… A.W. Tozer posed the question…

the question being…
“what do you think of Christ and what are you going to do about him…”

And maybe that’s two question in one…

However…
in that simple question lies the cusp of everything…
everything in a compact little nutshell.
The true bottom line.

For you see…
the question here isn’t about religion….
It isn’t about debates…
It isn’t about doctrine…
It isn’t about being an atheist
It isn’t about being agnostic
It isn’t about faith…

This is a question about one thing and one thing only.

Jesus Christ.

Nothing that has followed.
Nothing that has preceded.
Nothing that has resulted over the continuum of mankind…

With the only sole issue in the question, which is of relevant importance, is simply Jesus Christ.

People can claim to have problems with the Bible…
With the Church
With the faithful
with morality
with the various branches of Christianity…

Yet when all of that which is superfluous is finally pushed aside,
when the dust is settled
and the last breath of contention is expended,
it is only Jesus Christ who remains….

All these other issues,
concerns,
battles,
questions….
are reduced but to one single thing…

“God spake His eternal Word in Christ Jesus the Lord,
so Christ has settled every question….”
Because everything stands or falls with Him—and Him alone…

And until you are willing to cut away and dispose of everything else
that merely is distraction and minutia…
and deal with the center of the matter…
Jesus himself…
then you will continue avoiding the answer…

(a paraphrase of thought based on A.W. Tozer’s The Crucified Life)

In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you,
my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.
Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
John 16:23-24