The Power of X

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31 ESV). There have been some famous “X’s” in recent years. We’ve seen the X-Generation emerge, X-Men has made it from the pages of comics to the wide screen, and the X-Files has become a familiar TV program. X stuff has become vogue these days, though the popularity of X is nothing knew! It has a distinguished and glorious past! The closer we get to Christmas, the more we will be reminded of that past. The abbreviation Xmas for Christmas or Xtian for Christian are especially used at that time. These are reminders of X’s greatest glory. You see, in the Greek alphabet, X is not “ex” but “chi.” This X could be used alone and every believer would instantly know who was being talked about. It stood for Christ! You see the Greek spelling of Christ is “Xristos.” And Christians, or Xtians, have always had X Files! Not just any X Files. Not FBI X Files. But The Ultimate X Files. These are the files about the ultimate X, Christ. They are called the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Unfortunately, these X Files are not very widely read, not even by Xtians. So many people have found their favorite passages in other books of the Bible. Very few have spent the majority of their Bible reading time in the Gospels. And yet the declaration of John is that their sole purpose is to bring life to the reader! In an era when Christians have widely embraced the WWJD slogan, it’s seems strangely incongruent to ask “What Would Jesus Do?” and then not spend time with Jesus in the Scripture to know what He really did! Thankfully, we can easily correct this imbalance. One of the greatest gifts we have is the collection of these writings. We can sit down and read four different accounts of the life of Christ. We can know what Jesus did in his daily life by reading them. This is the real power of X! We are well into another winter and the beginning of another year. Why don’t we use the remainder of this year to read at least one of the Gospels? Read it all the way through in one sitting. Before you do that, ask God to reveal Christ more clearly than ever before. Read it in several different translations. Read it looking for clues to what God is saying to you by sending Jesus to earth. Read it asking God to help you fall more passionately in love with Christ and more convicted to follow him as Lord. Nothing could make a bigger difference to the world, nothing could help you better understand the meaning of being human, nothing could be more profound than for Christians to truly be captured by the key focus of the Gospels. After all, that’s what being a Christian is all about!