that's what it's all about!

I've been reading this book

And it has been making me feel like this

I've enjoyed the book because it has put in better words than my mind can conjure up some things that have always left me a little unsettled with American Christianity.  One of the things is how we confuse what Christianity, indeed what life, is all about.


The message of Christianity is NOT about Jesus coming to die for our sins to bring us life because God loves us.  That may sound shocking, radical even, but it is true.  That is only part of the message  The real message of the gospel is this:  God is awesome.  He is worthy of praise.  He is great and He loves us.  He is not great because He loves us.  His love for us being the center of our faith makes us the center of our lives.  Instead, GOD should be the center.  Everything Jesus did pointed to God's greatness.  He used God's love for people to point to God, but that was not the final message of Christ.


It's all about God.


Having David Platt explain this in words was not so much a surprising revelation.  Instead, it felt like a truth that had been in the corner of my mind, at the edge of my awareness, had finally settled down and found its home.


I remember my love for the worship in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I left Roca Blanca this summer truly touched by the prayer and praise of the people of Oaxaca.  They prayed to and praised God. They asked for assistance and thanked Him for blessings, but the central focus was God...and how worthy of praise He inherently is!  I want my heart and my life and my praise to be like that.  I want it all to be about God, because that is how life should be.  It is how God created it.  How egocentric have I been to insist on the gospel being about ME?  How silly that seems now that I have been able to articulate the concept that EVERYTHING...all love, all beauty, all goodness, all blessings, all gifts...are for GOD!! Hallelujah!