Today's Gospel

The Secret to a Beautiful Life

Welcome back to "Radical & Relevant ." Today's Gospel is from Luke, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5. On the Sabbath, while Jesus was going through the grain fields, his disciples plucked an eighth-some-ear of grain, rubbing them in their hands.

But some of the Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?" And Jesus answered them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry-- he and those who were with him-- how they entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the present, which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those with him?" And he said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath ." Is there a word or phrase or an idea that jumps out at you today?

We have this classic scenario: we've got the Pharisees questioning Jesus. And every time we see this, the fundamental truth that they fail to perceive or capture is not what Jesus is doing, or not what Jesus is saying, not who Jesus is with, but who Jesus is.

The Pharisees, the scribes-- whenever we see this encounter, if you look at it and you say, "Okay, what is the fundamental disagreement here? What is the fundamental misunderstanding here?" The fundamental misunderstanding is they don't understand who Jesus is. The fundamental disagreement is that they do not believe that Jesus is who he claims to be.

And so all of their misunderstanding, all of their resentments, all of their anger and rage and envy and spite and vindictiveness all comes out of that. And from that, we learn a powerful lesson. And that powerful lesson is: when we lose sight of who Jesus is, when we confuse ourselves about who Jesus is, things start to fall apart.

And an ugly side of each of us begins to come out. We see that in the Pharisees, the scribes. And you and I are all capable of that. You and I are all capable of the judgment and the behaviors of the Pharisees today. You and I are all capable of anything we see the Pharisees doing throughout the Gospels. It's an ugly side of the human person.

And that side comes out in the Pharisees because they fail to comprehend who Jesus is. And then when he tells them who he is, they refuse to accept and believe who he is. Who is Jesus? What place does he have in our lives? Are we living Christo-centric lives?

Is Jesus at the center? You know, and sometimes he is, right? Sometimes we're full of spiritual zeal, full of love of God. We're just overwhelmed with great love of God, and we place Jesus right in the center of our lives. We don't let anything get anywhere near that. But then there are other times in our lives we get distracted, we get busy, something happens, you know? And we nudge Jesus out of that center position.

And as we do, our lives begin to tilt. And maybe something happens the next day or the next week, and we nudge Jesus a bit more. And maybe we put another thing in the center, or maybe now we've got two things in the center. And the more we nudge Jesus to the periphery of our life, the more we nudge him out of that central place in our lives, the unhappier we become, and the ugly parts of us start to come out.

The reality is that virtue is beautiful. Holiness is beautiful. And if those things are true, then the opposite is also true. Vice is ugly. Sin is ugly. Sin turns us into somebody we were never created to be. That's tragic and ugly. So let's go out into the world today and live Christo-centric lives.

Live life with Jesus at the center. And let's beware of anything or anyone that tries to knock Jesus out of his prime and central position. Let's pay attention to that. And then each morning we wake up, let's place Jesus at the center of our lives. How do we do that? We do that primarily by placing him at the center of our decisions.

You know, to make each decision throughout the day, ask yourselves, "Okay, if Jesus is at the center of my life, what decision would I make here?" To make these decisions throughout the day, we keep Jesus at the center. And then at the end of the day-- so at the beginning of the day we place Jesus at the center. And then at the end of the day, before we go to bed, ask ourselves, "Is Jesus still at the center?" And if he isn't, why isn't he?

And what nudged him out of the way? Selfishness? Greed? Lust? Gluttony? Avarice? Envy? Laziness? It could be so many things.

And very often they're not things, but they're attitudes, they're behaviors, they're sins. Christo-centric lives. Let's get out of the world and live Christo-centric lives. That is how we build a Christo-centric culture. Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself. Be the very-best-version-of-yourself, all that God created you to be.