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Be Like Christ but wait… there’s more!





I talk with people about spiritual things often. Atheists, agnostics, deists, pantheists… you get the idea. Full disclosure: I love it and kind of have a knack for knowing what angle is going to get under people’s skin. Sometimes I can go overboard and for that, sorry, but that’s a risk I just have to take.

Something I’ve noticed a lot has been rolling around my head to finally get connected  with some words yesterday. A person took issue with my approach of delivering truth. I just told people what Jesus said and it wasn’t coated with enough sugar or I should’ve left things out, etc etc.


So out comes the ultimate fallback against a Christian: well that’s not what Jesus would do.


There’s just one major problem with this. The bible. Jesus was constantly offending people. I mean, the very things that people pat him on the back for now (hanging out with riffraffs and what not) was in itself offensive to the religious elite. A rich young ruler once came to him asking how to inherit eternal life. Jesus says  basically give everything you have away and follow me. He called people wolves (the worst insult you can make to someone in the middle east), dogs, pigs, snakes, and even children of satan (John 8:44). He actually called Peter  (yes THAT peter) satan directly (Matthew 16:23).  He said incredibly offensive things like “you want eternal life? Eat me. Drink my blood”.

Hey remember that time a bunch of people got together, railroaded some illegal trials, and murdered Jesus? He wasn’t just some flower child hippie who got the raw end of a deal. He seriously got under people’s skin in a big way. They HATED Him… because He was right and they knew it.

People don’t like to be told they are wrong. We have this overwhelming tendency to rationalize just about anything especially why we are right when we are really wrong. Time after time in your life you’ve been “that guy”. Me too. Its called being a prideful sinful human. Our instinct is to save face, not be truthful. So when you start messing with people’s worldviews (as any good Christian ought to do) they start to feel discomfort a lot of the time. Sometimes its just a pleasant talk, sometimes its mild irritation, and sometimes you’re the personification of evil for forcing your beliefs on them.

At this juncture the old “well you’re not being Christ like” usually comes out, I politely explain what Christ really was like, and then the mother of all ironies usually finds its way into the dialogue.


I hope you’re sitting down because it’s quite the kicker.

*ahem*

“Well you’re not Jesus so you can’t just say things like that”


Woah! Lock up the airbrakes snowman did you catch that? FIVE minutes earlier the SAME person is saying “well you need to be more like Jesus” followed by “yeah well you can’t be ALL the way like Jesus”.

Look, here’s how I see it. You don’t want me to be like Jesus. You want me to be like the caricature all loving never throwing tables and curses and whipping people’s butts jesus but that jesus is a creation of your own mind.  You have made a god in your own image. The real Jesus does indeed hate, curse (if you need confirmation of this ask a woman giving birth if it feels like a blessing), throw tables, and seriously regulate this reality that He created for Himself by Himself.

But He can also love more deeply than you know and more importantly, He can save anyone anywhere at any time.


What’s the ticket price for something like that? Your pride. Your life.

Choose you this day whom you will serve.

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