But one thing I do!

It is true I believe that many of us who call ourselves Christians are not living with a great seriousness and energy for Christ. Christ is the first word in Christian and many of us to a degree neglect that name and live for ourselves.  Among this number I enlist myself and if you cannot enlist yourself among this fold then I applaud you and wish that many of us may follow your example because you are imitating Paul who imitated Christ. I do not show this weakness to condemn but rather to create an excitement of the great potentials which those who live their lives with great energy and seriousness may do and accomplish for the kingdom of Christ. The weakness which I am exposing is that many of us have rejected that first principle of seeking first the kingdom of Christ and his righteousness. Although many of us may confess this verbally yet the principle is missing in the depths of  our heart. We see the deep thirst for worldly satisfaction and a shallow hunger for his kingdom. And because of this imbalance and neglect of the first principles we see in our lives the display of what lies hidden in our souls. We see an imbalance, for the majority of our conducts and imaginations are all to do with our comfort, security and worry in this present life. By way of example I ask you dear reader - when you wake, what is it that occupies your mind? What are your first activities and throughout the day what captures your heart? Also when drawing your priorities, which activities do you give the most earnestness and attention and is it because these activities work towards your comfort and security and eliminates all of your worries? And when you have to make space to do other earnest duties, which activities are the first to go? Are they prayer, bible study and reading, evangelism and church services?* These I believe will be the first to go because men having lost that eternal perspective are apt to give more attention to those things which promote their earthly satisfaction. And this is a great sin of the church that many members have no great seriousness and energy for Christ and his kingdom and because of this awful neglect the church as well as those who are perishing suffers. 


Would you not like your life to count and your story told in the recount of the redemption story of how you died to yourself and lived entirely for His kingdom and because of your diligence many escaped the fiery hell. If so then I beseech you to remember those first principles of seeking first Christ and his kingdom and righteousness with great energy and seriousness.


We see a perfect example in the life of Paul the apostle. For he says ‘but one thing I do’. What is this one thing that he does? ‘forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’. Pause and meditate on those words. And because Paul only does one thing here is how he viewed his life ‘But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him..’ Philippians 3.  Paul sought the kingdom of Christ and his righteousness with a great energy and seriousness. Because Paul lived for one thing and consequently only does one thing he ‘made himself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.. I have become all things to all people that, that by all means I might save some of them. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings….So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself become disqualified’ 1 Corinthians 9. 


Imagine now if you and everyone truly sought first the kingdom of Christ and his righteousness as the Apostle did. There is no excuse to think that this is unattainable because Paul was an apostle. Paul himself declared to the Thessalonians ‘For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you’ 2 Thessalonians 3:7. If we all lived this way that is with great energy and seriousness for Christ Kingdom and his righteousness how different or how radical would the impact of the church be in the world?


K.Oni


*There is no distinction between sacred and ordinary work, all works are ought to be done to the glory of God. All of our works are meant to have as its chief focus as being done unto the Lord.