I should be sleeping...

but i'm not...

A couple weeks ago i went and visited the church i grew up in and went to youth group (a friend of mine is the youth pastor)...i honestly don't remember too much about his sermon, except for one illustration he gave.

here's how it goes...many people have center pieces on their kitchen tables, usually it's a flower arrangement or something like that...the center piece is what makes the table presentable, that's why you always want a nice looking center piece. sometimes, life gets going, and things get busy...the house gets messy, you don't have time to pickup after yourself and the table becomes cluttered, and the center piece, is no longer in the center, but rather on the counter, or, in my friend's family, sitting on the couch in the room off of the kitchen! it's out of the way, where you don't have to look at it, and it's not going to bother you. BUT, when you have guests over, you make sure that the center piece is put right in the middle, and looks the best it can. everything is cleaned up, and the center piece just makes you look like you've got it goin on!

most have probably picked up on the analogy, but if you haven't, i'll finish the illustration...

Christ is (or at least should be) the center piece of our lives. when we need to look good for our friends, or whoever we're trying to impress, Christ is the 'main thing' (as Pastor Terry likes to say), and we look like the poster child for Christianity...but too often we get caught up in life, things get busy, and stuff becomes cluttered. We take our center piece (Christ) which was once in the middle, and move it off to the counter, or maybe in a completely different room! Why? because that's what is most convenient for us at the moment...

What's your center piece? Maybe it is Christ, but are you keeping Him in the center where he should be, or does He sometimes become lost in the clutter, and pushed aside?