Jesus be the centre

Jesus chose three disciples to be with Him up the mountain where they witnessed Him being transformed before them alongside the two most revered heroes in Hebrew history – Moses and Elijah.

Peter’s immediate response to the vision tells us quite a bit about his perspective on the amazing event. “It is good for us to be here.” In this short sentence, Peter makes himself and the other two disciples central to an experience to which they are only onlookers. It is not about them – it is about Jesus. The whole event is about Jesus and God’s affirmation of His Son and His mission to redeem lost mankind.

Like Peter we too are often egocentric. We approach life from our own perspective instead of from God’s perspective. We can be more conscious of ourselves than of Jesus. We may have prayed a prayer making Jesus Lord of our lives many times, but somehow the old self takes over the throne of the heart. We sing songs and call it ‘worship’, yet some of the songs we sing don’t even mention Jesus. They are sometimes songs about ourselves, or songs we sing to ourselves.

Peter’s second response to a profound spiritual experience was to say, “Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He wanted to make a passing experience permanent. He was supposed to be listening to the voice from heaven revealing to them the person of Jesus and telling them to listen to Him. Peter was not supposed to be talking or suggesting; the intention of the transfiguration of Jesus was that he would see Jesus and know the truth about Him.

Like Peter we too can be found talking and suggesting, instead of listening. Like Peter we may have had our mountain experiences and we may want them to be repeated. But they are not meant to be memorials that we long to recreate. They are meant to transform us, to take us deeper into Jesus, so that increasingly He becomes the centre of our lives and the reason that we live.

Prayer: Father, please forgive me for the times I have looked at things from my perspective instead of from Your perspective and for the times when I have been centred on myself instead of on Jesus and the purpose for which He came. Thank You that You gave Your Son, and that You have revealed Him to me. Today I choose to make Jesus the centre of my life. Amen.