JUST ONE THING
/I love the scene in City Slickers where Jack Palance is talking to Billy Crystal and tells him the secret to life is just one thing. Of course, when Jack Palance holds up one finger and says, “just one thing” he does it like no one else: gruff, distinct and absolutely believable. When he finishes you are convinced the secret to life is “just one thing.” When Billy Crystal asks him what that one thing is Ol Jack says, “That is for you to figure out.” Great words for all of us.
I must agree with Jack on this one. We cram so much into life that for most of us to even think it could be reduced to just one thing would sound absurd. But Jack got it right. I don’t know if he got his information from Jesus or not because Jesus pretty well said the same thing. When Jack said this it was up to us to figure out. But, Jesus explained exactly what that one thing is, and His opinion of that "one thing" can be taken to the bank.
I am going to paste the introduction to my book, “MAKING PEACE WITH GOD IN A TURBULENT WORLD.” The substance of this book is all about what Jesus said is the secret to life. If the introduction interests you then click on my writings and you will find the book material there. I highly urge you to read it. What a shame it would be if when you are standing before Jesus at the throne of His judgment and He were to say to you, “It was all about this one thing and it’s too bad you missed it.”
Introduction
According to the Jewish calendar humans have been on the earth for about 5,800 years. During this time there has been this one constant; every age and every culture has tried to establish their way of dealing with God. This pursuit of what God wants from us, and how we deal with Him has resulted in the formation of a concept called religion. This pursuit has not produced a singular religion but an enormous amount of religions or religious groups scattered across the landscape of history. Sometimes these religious groups are in stark contrast to each other and sometimes the differences are only minor. But the constant is seen in mankind’s consistent pursuit of how to relate to God. Many times this results in some sort of treatise defining what, when, where and how a religious group must carry out their particular religion.
Around eighteen hundred years after God created the first two humans God choose a very special person named Abraham and explained to him the way humans were to relate to God. When God spoke to Abraham He did not give him a new form of religion. Instead, He gave him a promise that one of his descendants would establish the way all humans in every nation, every race, and every culture throughout every age needs to relate to God. What is so interesting about this promise is that religion has nothing to do with it at all.
A little over four hundred years after Abraham, God choose one of Abraham’s descendants by the name of Moses to begin the process of a most unusual journey towards the birth of Abraham’s promised descendant. This journey would take the family of Abraham who by now had grown to the size of a couple million people, and used them to reveal through numerous writings and pictures exactly who this promised descendant of Abraham would be. Once again, these writings and pictures had nothing to do with a religion. Unfortunately, Abrahams descendants eventually turned what God was teaching through His writings and pictures into an established form of religion. This just seems to be the nature of us humans. We know there is a God and for some reason we think He desires religion.
Fourteen hundred years after God met with Moses the promised descendant of Abraham was born in a little town called Bethlehem. By now the world had seen a thousand different religions emerge with each one proclaiming theirs was the correct way of relating to God. This pattern would continue for the next two thousand years of human history.
With the birth of Jesus, the promised descendant of Abraham, now mankind could finally learn the correct form of religion as defined by God Himself. At least that is what church history seems to convey by the numerous ways and means developed by every church since then. But Jesus did nothing to show us what God wants from religion. Instead, He did just the opposite; He condemned man made religion with its form and functional ways governing how to relate to God. Right from the beginning of His three-year ministry on earth all the way to His crucifixion and post resurrection days Jesus talked about one thing – the gospel of the kingdom thus establishing the true way God wants us to relate to Him.
With the correct way we are to relate to God finally revealed by Jesus as He taught the gospel of the kingdom, we learn that it has nothing to do with how we gather, how we meet, what kind of creeds we say, what doctrinal truths we subscribe to, what our religious history proclaims, how ecclesiastical we are, what religious form we practice, who founded our religion, and what denomination or non-denomination we belong to. Jesus condemned religion as He went from city to city preaching the gospel of the kingdom, forever setting the record straight of how a person is supposed to relate to God.
What is so crazy about this is even though what He said about relating to God has nothing to do with religion, those who follow Him seem to be predisposed to take what He said and turn it into another form of religion while ignoring the very instructions He gave on how to have a relationship with God.
I guess this should not surprise us for God told the prophet Samuel when he was sent to anoint the next king of Israel that mankind looks at externals but God looks only at the heart. We can see here why we like religion so much. We humans love the external side of all things and that certainly applies to our relationship with God as well. It is much easier to be consumed with form and function than it is to deal with the internal character of the heart. Religious history has shown that those groups found to be most interested in the external form and function of relating to God most often will be the furthest from what Jesus actually taught.
With that said, let me draw your attention to the one person who would know more about relating to God than anyone who has ever lived, and that is Jesus, the promised descendant of Abraham and the Son of the One we desire to have a relationship with. He began His ministry preaching the gospel of the kingdom. He continued with this same message all the way to the cross and spent His post resurrection time on earth talking to His disciples about the kingdom of God. The kingdom message dominated everything He taught and it is here that we learn how to relate to God the way He wants us to. It should just naturally be a smart thing for us to sit down and listen to what Jesus has to say, but it appears more natural for us to envelope ourselves with the external clothing of orthodoxy.
Wouldn’t it be nice to step out of our religious chains for a moment and go back in time to listen as Jesus teaches us how we need to relate to God? We can actually do this because God wrote down the very words Jesus spoke to a large crowd of people one day as He taught them exactly what is needed in order to have a proper relationship with God. I hope you will let me take you on a little journey back to that hill in Galilee and listen as the master teacher addresses this very thing. We have seats reserved next to a man by the name of Prodigo. We can listen to Jesus and watch as Prodigo discovers things about God he never heard or thought before. As we watch Prodigo struggle with the truth Jesus teaches, maybe we can learn a thing or two about how to relate to God. Jesus is just about ready to begin so lets join Prodigo. He still has a few great seats saved for us right next to him.
See you soon