The Challenge of Christ

Christ and His Purpose

by Gary Bourgeault                                          

From before the beginning of creation and after the end of creation, Christ has always existed.

When He came He brought all that had existed before the creation of man and the eventual fall, and showed what it was that had been happening between the Father and Himself throughout eternity.

Then in an unexplainable revelation, He invited us to participate in that same life that has always existed in the Godhead. 

Yet because man had fallen, we for the most part miss this great revelation and invitation, because we center on redemption and forgiveness of sins as the end that Christ and the Father had in mind. 

We must learn that there is much more than that that has been existing in God from before the creation. Yes we needed to have the sin issue taken care of. There could be no access to the Father without that happening. The question we must ask ourselves after this had been entered into, and we now all have access to the Father again is this: What is the purpose that all of this has happened?

Paul reveals to us that there has existed in the heart of God from before creation an eternal purpose. This purpose existed before sin and it still exists after there is no longer any sin in the creation.

It is a purpose as vast as the heart of God itself. This purpose has been for the most part ignored or not even acknowledged as having existed in God. 

Still we are told in the scriptures that all things have been created for Him, through Him, by Him, and to Him. We can never thank the Lord enough for what He has done for us in the salvation that He has provided for us. Yet we miss so much when we don't take into account why this has all happened. 

Christ died for us for much more than simple forgiveness of sins; He died to bring us back in line with what it was that He had hidden within Himself from before time. And as great as salvation is, there is much more to it than that. 

Jesus Christ is the door back into the Father. And once we participate into this access with Him, where are we to go then? That is what this site is dedicated to searching out with you.

What are we to do with this Jesus whom we are confronted with?
 
What does it mean when we are told that our glorious hope is that Christ is in us? Not just in us individually, but much more significantly - corporately as a group.  
We will look at why the early church never met in buildings and never knew the empty rituals and practices that fill the modern-day church. We will explore the history of those that never adapted the practices that have dominated church history since the time of Constantine.  

Mostly though we will look at this Jesus and what it is that He has been after from before the creation of this world and man. Most Christians don’t have more than a slight idea of what that is. Most don’t know what it is that motivates their Lord and why we even exist in the first place.

This may seem odd to most of you, but that is something that Christians, many times unknowingly, fight against the hardest. Why? We seek those things that are our own rather than those things that are Christ’s.  

There is one thing that we must all know for sure: we live for Him. We are here for Him. 

He has poured His life into us, and offered us to eat and drink of that life forever. He is in us, we are in Him, He is in the Father, and eventually we learn to be in one another. This fantastic reality was happening in the Godhead from before creation and is offered to continue happening to this day and forever.
 
The alternative is to create systems and hierarchies that replace personal and corporate responsibility. This is what creates the vacuum that allows manmade systems to form as an alternative to the freedom-loving organic life that exists in Christ.  

This is where ambitious people throughout history have stepped in and replaced Christ as the only way to God. Not necessarily as Savior, but as some type of in-between with God and man.  

No, we all have access to God directly through Christ, and He is not a respecter of persons that He will give special treatment to one over another. It is to whosoever desires Him that He will open Himself up to. This fellowship comes at a cost though, and many resist this also.  

People like to have things done their way and not Gods. Again this causes resentment within the flesh of man. Jesus Christ, if nothing else, demands to have His way with us. We are to adapt and respond to Him, not attempt to wrap Him around what we know or desire or understand.  

While you may heartily agree with much that is written, still there will be a demand put upon you that initially you may resist and resent: What are you going to do with this Jesus Christ who has always lived? What are you going to do with the discovery that the way things are now in the church are not the way things have been or were meant to be? That is always the question that we must answer - both individually, but much more importantly, as the church.