“…I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” Revelation 1:17-18.
What awesome truth these words disclose concerning our Lord Jesus. We know these words well, we have read them often, and we freely testify that they are absolutely true. But how come we can so easily give mental acknowledgement to the veracity of such truth, without it changing and transforming us, as truth about Christ should? I believe it is all to do with a misplaced and wrongly prioritized value system. We can value truth about Christ and yet stop short of valuing rightly the person of Jesus Christ Himself.
Augustine once said, “Jesus Christ is not valued at all until He is valued above all.” Is that your true value of the person of the Lord Jesus - is He above all?
If that is the case, our lives will surely show it. Our lives will be transformed, they will reflect Jesus for He is the One - the very center of our lives - the One whom we value above all! Or as Dan Stone said in his book - ‘The Rest of the Gospel’ - If Jesus Christ is supreme in our lives we will be captured by the truth that “God in His grace and mercy has made us a part of His plan. But we are not the center of it; Christ is.”