Christianity is about Jesus Christ. How basic, yet how overlooked.

For a period stretching over many years, I was all about the rituals of what I perceived to be good Christianity. Give me the list and I’ll do it. Show me the box and I’ll get into it. Give me the methods and I’ll implement them like a practiced “Method-ist.” But in time, the Spirit in mercy began to lift up before my eyes the Lord Jesus—the person.

How many claim to prize the Word yet miss the person pointed to by the Word of God? Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). Today’s believers often make a similar mistake. The Word is essential to our understanding, directing us to the living Word, to Jesus Himself. But still, people can study and even memorize Scripture and somehow miss the very person of the Word.

The focus must be on Jesus. Seek Him and He will be found of you. In our Christian world, Jesus is often overlooked as people favor conforming themselves to a preferred box version (or even a no-box version) of Christianity. A mere conformance to rules or to group attitudes, however, will miss the vital relationship a believer can have with the person of Jesus Christ.

When you fall in love with Jesus, you leave the prison of “Don’ts” for the freedom of “Won’ts.” Jesus becomes your real leader and life source. When you access Him through faith, Jesus gives you liberty to do a thing, or, as He deems appropriate, the liberty not to act. In either case, you are accessing Him, and Jesus, your leader and life source, is the person of real Christianity.

The Liberating Life of Jesus explains this at length. The book describes the boxes we too often have substituted for a real relationship with Jesus. It highlights how accessing His life can transform a typically joyless and powerless struggle into the Christian life He intends for you to live.

The Liberating Life of Jesus is available from both the Revival Focus webstore and Amazon.com.

John Van Gelderen

John Van Gelderen

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