In Christ: Know It, Live It - 58 (How Change Begins and Continues - 1)

"But that is not how you learned Christ - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus..." Ephesians 4:20,21

Living the new life in Christ not only requires that we NO LONGER live like pagans alienated from God, but it also requires that we REMEMBER the glorious gospel we were taught and what happened to us through that gospel. The health and strength and growth of our Christian life is utterly dependent on how we hold to and stand on our beginnings...our foundation.

In Ephesians 4:20,21 the Apostle Paul makes it crystal clear that our foundation is...CHRIST. Learning the gospel is learning about CHRIST. Being discipled as a Christian is being taught as a disciple of CHRIST. Jesus is the TRUTH and the TRUTH is in JESUS. There is NO escape from the futile, darkened thinking and greedy pursuit of sensuality that WAS our life except through the Savior, CHRIST.

It is a central fact of Christian growth that our growth does NOT come PRIMARILY from focusing on ourselves or focusing on lists of behaviors or learning propositional truths or spiritual "secrets" but through LEARNING ABOUT CHRIST. We must learn and continue to learn WHO Christ is and WHAT Christ has done and WHAT Christ continues to do on the behalf of lost and calloused sinners like ourselves. What a glorious SAVIOR is ours. What a sovereign LORD is our Lord.

ALL of Scripture is about Christ. The OT tells us He is coming and what He will do and then the NT tells us He has come, what He has accomplished, and HOW we are to KNOW HIM and FOLLOW HIM.

Jesus Christ is the supreme and singular object of saving and sanctifying faith (Galatians 2:20). We can easily get stuck taking the spiritual temperature of our faith instead of gazing upon and learning of FAITH'S OBJECT, CHRIST. Only as we look to Him can our faith gain strength and grow.

Regardless of our need or challenge from sin or Satan, CHRIST is the answer. Every problem in the church has one answer...HER HEAD, CHRIST! The future has one ultimate goal and purpose...CHRIST: returning and judging and setting up His eternal Kingdom.

HE is where we start and HE is how we continue and HE is where we will end. Do you KNOW Christ? Did you spend time worshiping Him today? Are you living and breathing dependence on Him as you go through your day?