The C.o.r.e. of Christianity

There's a saying in strength training that you're only as strong as your core. Without a good connection between lower body and upper body, you won't function very efficiently or effectively. In other words, you're limited in applying whatever peripheral strengths you may have. With that in mind, what's the core of Christianity? What is it that must be built upon in order for everything else we do to be effective?

C - the Cross of Christ

The Cross of Jesus Christ is a capital C. Apart from an understanding of the Cross, every effort towards righteousness, love, faith, hope, etc. is foundationless. We are limited if we believe that we can do anything of significance apart from an embracing of the Cross and what it means. The Cross speaks of the core of our problems: sin, and it reveals the core of the only lasting solution: resurrection. If we vainly attempt to apply salves and bandages to our own or our neighbors' wounds we ultimately accomplish no healing at all. It's not until the root problem of sin is addressed and overcome by the Cross that any newness of life can be experienced. It's also a capital C because while the remaining three core fundamentals may be shared by other worldviews, the Cross of Christ is exclusive to Christianity. It stands alone and unrivaled throughout history. Nowhere else do we see the roads of God, man, meekness, and conquering cross paths except in the life and gospel of Jesus.

0 - outreach

This hearkens back to the 'extending God's love' from a previous post (My 5 Exes, Part 1). Christianity is a life of outreach. There must be a missional mindset among believers if we are to truly represent the core of our faith. All through scripture we see this outreach of God to mankind. In the garden of Eden, God calls to Adam and Eve, 'Where are you?' after they had made the choice to disobey by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The prophets record God's pleading words with Israel as He declares not only His knowledge of their sin, but His complete forgiveness and deep desire to be reconciled completely with them forever. Jesus is the appearance of God in human flesh as He reaches out to a people ' without hope and without God in the world' (Ephesians 2). Jesus said that He came to 'seek and to save' those who are lost. Clearly at the core of who we are (or must be) is being people who do not turn blind eyes or deaf ears to the world around us, but rather we are the hands that reach out in love and the feet that carry good news to the ends of the earth joyfully.

r - relationship

At the core of Christianity, we find relationships are more cherished than all other things. The indescribable Triune God, Three in One. There is relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The scripture 'God is love' in 1 John 3 can't be understood apart from how highly God values relationships. He expresses His Nature through them. Marriage. Parenting. The church. Our bodies. The miracle of diverse things being connected together for a unified purpose of love, activity, and joy serves as a clear highlight that relationships are fundamental to understanding God and the life we receive from Him. Consider the relational focus of Paul's writings in the New Testament. Again and again he is greeting or warning or encouraging or reminding or praising or rebuking or boasting about another individual or group of people - all for the sake of relationship. He loved the people God had placed in His care. Relationships were everything to him. Jesus' teachings can clearly be understood as the truest approach to relating rightly to God and other people. From the sermon on the mount to the instruction to John concerning Mary from the cross, we see and hear Jesus showing and telling us what love for God, love for our neighbor, love for one another, and love for our enemies looks like. Relationships, forming and maintaining them, must be at the core of who we are as a people of faith.

e - eternal life

This is the gift of God to us: eternal life in Jesus our Lord (Romans 6). The foundation for our thinking and our living must be an understanding that all this creation around us is temporary. We, however, are not. This gives a new perspective to our priorities. That Lexus in the garage is temporary; the hitchhiker in the rain is not. That new huge-screen TV is temporary; that baby playing with the knobs and buttons on it is not. That new blog you started working on every week is temporary; your wife is not. People and relationships take on greater worth when viewed through the lens of eternity. Consider the sheep and the goats parable as taught by Jesus in Matthew 25. The actions and attitudes of the two groups of people were revealed by how they lived and who they loved. The core of the goats was self, outer appearance and social status. The core of the sheep's hearts was outreach, relationship, and love for God and neighbor. They valued eternal things and therefore entered into the enjoyment of eternal life. As Christians, we must fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12) and set our hearts on things above (Colossians 3). If we are swayed by the sights and times in which we live, our strength and function as believers will be limited and diminished.

The beauty of the Core of Christianity is that all the parts work together, rely on one another, and complement each other. The Cross is the culmination God's outreach to the world in the attempt to restore relationship between Himself and mankind - a relationship that will last for eternity. These are the heart of what we believe. They are our core. Weakness or neglect in any/all of these will seriously hinder any other strength we have or effort we make.

Father God, Your strength and power are unmatched, and I know how desperately weak I am, all because of sin. Thank you for overcoming my weakness with Your strength through the Cross of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank You for showing me how to be and live strong. Work me over again and again until my core is the strongest part of who I am. I repent of focusing on less important gifts that make me look good while turning away from the harder work of relationships and outreach. Give me the perspective of eternity so that I will value that which lasts. You, O God are the strength of my heart and my portion forever! Amen.