The Greatness of ChristSample

Christ Is Everything

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

We inhabit one planet belonging to a solar system in one small part of a vast galaxy of stars, and there are a hundred billion of these vast galaxies. Jesus Christ is preeminent over all of this. Not just over our lives, our country, our planet, our solar system, or our galaxy, but over the entirety of creation. Out of all that there is or ever will be, one person is preeminent: Jesus Christ.

Some people say that Jesus was just a great teacher of morals, but they have no idea who He really is. The Person who has preeminence and supremacy over the cosmos is no mere man. Oh no! He is so much more. He is the very God, Creator of all things everywhere, exalted and infinite, King of kings and Lord of lords, dazzling in the splendor of his glory. Christ not only has preeminence over the vast stretches of the cosmos, but He also must have preeminence in my life. 

This primacy of Christ means I depend upon Him, worship Him, serve Him, love Him, and follow Him. It means a life lived for Christ: lived not for my dreams, my wants, my desires, my comforts, or my security, but Christ’s calling for me. As Paul succinctly put it in Philippians, “For to me to live is Christ.” 

There is a classic story of the renowned composer Arturo Toscanini:

One evening he brilliantly conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The audience went mad; people clapped, whistled, and stomped their feet. Toscanini bowed and bowed and bowed. He signaled to the orchestra, and its members stood to acknowledge the wild applause. Eventually the applause began to subside. With the quieting applause in the background, Toscanini turned, looked intently at his musicians, and almost uncontrollably exclaimed, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” The gentlemen in the orchestra leaned forward to listen. Why was the maestro so disturbed? Was he angry? Had somebody missed a cue? Had the orchestra flawed the performance? No. Toscanini was not angry. Toscanini was stirred to the very depths of his being by the sheer magnificence of Beethoven’s music. Scarcely able to talk, he whispered fiercely, “Gentlemen, I am nothing.” That was an extraordinary admission, since Toscanini was blessed with an enormous ego. “Gentlemen,” he added, “you are nothing.” That was hardly news. The members of the orchestra had often heard the same message in rehearsal. “But Beethoven,” said Toscanini in a tone of adoration, “is everything, everything, everything.”

This must be our perspective about Christ. Christ is Everything, Everything, Everything.