Food for thought: At the heart of it

From a post by Wayne Jacobsen at his LifeStream blog:

How quick we are to take our eyes off of Jesus and put it on ‘the church’ in its myriad of expressions. When we do the life is lost, because there is life in no other but the Son. There are lots of ways believers can gather and encourage each other. But at the heart of it, Jesus must have first place in all things. That’s what makes the church, the church! It isn’t where we meet or how we meet, but the church ‘gathers’ around the supremacy of Christ. Read Colossians 1 again some time and bask in the simple joy that Jesus is the first born of the new creation.

Where we are focused on him we get to experience the life of the church with him. When we are focused on any other thing, including whatever church model we’re trying to implement, we’ll only get to experience the model.