Keeping the main thing the main thing!

1 Peter 3:18

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God...

I have, as of late, been reading a number of very good books. One that I am really enjoying is God Is The Gospel by John Piper. In it he talks about the main point of the Gospel being God Himself... not just what He gives. I will let him describe it himself:

Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven - none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us... The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God.

I find the power of that last statement brings an amazing focus to living this life. How easy it is to get caught up in all the works of God (and our part in them) and lose sight of why it is we follow Jesus - to be with Him. Our pursuit of holiness, our fighting for authentic relationships with our brothers and sisters, our passion for the world and it's lost... these all fall in behind this one main thing - to be with God. Everything that we have (given to us), everything we are (crafted within us), everything we do (appointed for us) comes to us, for us and through us to lead people to our King, Lord and Savior.

Piper poses a powerful question that is well worth reflection and meditation... I encourage you to think about it: If you could choose to go to a heaven right now (enjoying all of it's fruit and riches) WITHOUT God, would you go?