In the centre of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, there rests a compound of sorts named the Epicenter. With cobblestone walkways, high arching doorways, and level after level of unique restaurants and all matters of nightlife, it is a different world from the concrete jungle that surrounds it.

In the evening when the sun has died down below the glass structured buildings, soft warm light from dangling exposed vintage bulbs illuminates the small alleyways. Various genres of music can be heard vibrating off the brick walls. People of all walks of life can be found floating from one place to another enjoying the scents and sounds.

The epicenter. The heartbeat in the downtown core of such a beautiful and vibrant city. But in truth, the word epicenter is often misused in today’s language. The word derives from the New Latin noun epicentrum, and the latinisation of the ancient Greek adjective epikentros which is, “occupying a cardinal point, situated on a centre”. But the word epicenter is actually a term of seismology that refers to understanding the damage caused by earthquakes. And in the science of seismology, the epicenter is the point on the Earth’s surface directly above the point where the fault begins to rupture, and in most cases, it is the area of greatest damage.

We have learned that our faith has a starting point. We have questioned what it would be like to start over again and begin anew this thing called faith as an adult. We have searched for our bullseye on the blueprint of life seeking where we should take our next step for all we can do is take one step at a time. But if we are going to consider Christianity as an adult, the only question we must consider is who Jesus is at the epicenter of our faith.

The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter. The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated. Then Peter took the floor: “Friends, you well know that from early on God made it quite plain that he wanted the pagans to hear the Message of this good news and embrace it—and not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth. And God, who can’t be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person’s thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us. He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very centre of who they were and working from that centre outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him.
Acts 15:6-9 (The Message)

Jesus is the point of the greatest damage in our journey of life. Hear me out: when we submit unto Him and who He is, He tears down false gods, shreds apart faulty thinking, and shatters the chains of sin that hold us down. He destroys and causes the greatest damage to that which the enemy built within us.

It is the catastrophic centre of the emotional storm that births the change from who we were were to who He desires us to be. The epicenter is where the spiritual warfare on our soul exploded in the fiercest moment of the battle. And that moment- that focal point in our journey of faith- is the greatest starting point of them all.

Father, as I seek you and all you have for my life, tear down and destroy all that they enemy has built that keeps me from experiencing your very best. In Jesus name, amen.