Just a Little Slice, Please

January, 2006

by: Lisa Hughes

Recently, I heard a sermon in which the preacher related the observations of a missionary who had just returned home to the States from his ministry in France. The missionary recounted his shock and grief over the spiritual state of the church. “In France?” his host asked. “No, here in America,” the missionary replied. “People here live as though Christ were part of their lives and not the point of their lives.”

I have to admit that statement caused me to mentally stop in my tracks. What did that missionary mean? What is not good about having Christ be part of my life? What distinction was that missionary trying to make by using those two words?

What does it mean to have Christ be the point of my life I mulled? I supposed he meant that Christ needs to be the purpose of my life, the reason I do everything and anything. Then I began to examine my life under the magnifying glass of that phrase. Is Christ the point, the purpose of my life? Do I reflect that purpose in how I obey Him, in how I serve within the body of Christ? Is He my purpose in how I love my husband and my children, in the way I show hospitality and serve others? Is He my purpose in how I think and respond each day? Oh, those were hard questions. I found myself praying and confessing, “Lord, You know my heart and You know that I want to live as though You are the point of my life, but I fear that I am living too much as though You were only a part of my life.”

And that’s when I understood what the missionary was trying to convey. Christians in America tend to live with Christ as only one part of our busy, filled up lives. And while He may be part of our lives, is that the extent of His involvement? I realized it’s like the pumpkin pie we make at Thanksgiving. We mark out the slices so that everyone will get a piece. We make sure that we give Christ His slice of our lives, but Christ never intended to be just a piece of pie in our lives. We need to understand that He is to be the pie. Then it doesn’t matter how many slices of pie you have in your life, He is always there. That is what it means to live with Christ as the point of our lives and not just a part of it.

Paul conveyed this same idea when he sent his letter to the believers at Crete in the book of Titus. He wrote in vs. 1: Paul, a bond-servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness. He was God’s servant and Christ’s apostle for the faith of those chosen of God. His God-sanctified life was lived for those chosen by God. Every waking moment was spent in God’s pursuits. Every piece of Paul’s life was filled with Christ.

He said it a different way in Phil. 3:7-10: “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, ...that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Paul wanted his mind, his heart, his comings and goings to be consumed with Jesus Christ. Paul lived with Christ as the point of his life. Jesus Christ wasn’t one more activity to fit into an already busy schedule, somewhere between brushing his teeth and going to the market.

What about you? How are you going to live this year? Maybe you need to make some changes so that Jesus Christ won’t just be one piece, one part of your life. Live this year as though Christ were the point, the purpose of your life and not just a part of it.