Christ-Centered—Cross-Centered
/Theologians and scripture expositors have often said, “Christ and the cross are the center of the Bible” — that everything before looks forward to this, and everything after it looks back to it.
For Christians, Christ isn’t just the center of our Bibles, He’s the focal point of all history—we even count time as the years before and after His birth. He’s to be the center of all our thinking, “we’re taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
When Christ is our center, He’s what we come to know and speak most about. Paul also told the Corinthians, he came “proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1,2). In a culture that is increasingly Christ-averse, we still “sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts” (1 Pet. 3:15).
Why is this so? Why are we so dedicated to, so enlivened through, and animated by, One who lived so long ago? Because Christ died for our sins before He’d let us die in them. Thus He gave Himself for us all. John the apostle said, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:2).
His death for me, and for you, and the new life that brings makes me want to center all things on Him, as so many have done before. Would you make Him your center too?