Sometimes we complicate life by making a big deal out of small things while not making a big deal out of things that have great significance.  That is what Jesus accused the Pharisees of in Matthew 23.  He pronounces “Woe” upon them and says stuff like “you guys strain out gnats to swallow camels.”  In other words you miss the simplicity of the big picture and you focus on the little complicated things of life.  The result is that your life is in a complicated, twisted mess… and you think you are OK.

Profound simplicity.
If we don’t understand the simple yet profound truth of Christian monotheism we are in danger of a life plagued with camel swallowing.  We will strain out gnats (worry about behavior rather than heart) and miss the foundational truth that God is “the One True God.”  The fact that He is Lord will be proclaimed in word but will be contradicted in deed.
It will look like stagnant lives devoid of desperate, prayer soaked Jesus clinging.  A sad lack of reliance on (or even thought of) the Holy Spirit.  A gospel that is complicated, cluttered and shallow that sounds and feels powerless.

At the core of our Christian faith is the monotheistic realization that the Creator God of the universe has a redemptive claim over every area of our lives. A thick understanding of this truth:

• Informs our concept of salvation and discipleship
• Protects us from a compartmentalized life of sacred and secular areas
• Directs our worship toward God rather than idols and over desires.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. [2] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.