1 Thing You Need to Know About Perfect People … July 20th, 2020

Jonathots Daily Blog

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No One Likes Them

Years ago in my Junior High Sunday School class, I remember telling the church deacon, who was teaching us young ones, that I believed Jesus was not perfect.

My statement sucked the air out of the room.

I continued. “Jesus disobeyed his parents when he was twelve, yelled at a whole lot of people, whipped some folks in the Temple, and broke all sorts of Jewish Sabbath rules. But because he hung around and worked on his life instead of getting angry and defensive, he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.”

My teacher was at a loss for words. So like most people who find themselves wordless, he insisted that the last thing he said was absolutely right.

“Jesus was perfect,” he bellowed, “and in our church we declare him to be.”

To this day, I do not know why we want Jesus to be perfect.

He lived a human life.

The Good Book says he was tempted like we are, touched with our infirmities, and he was a “son of man.”

In other words, just one of us.

What I clearly need to know is, what did Jesus do when he looked at his life and felt the need to change?

The Gospels teach me that he went off by himself in the wilderness to work out his temptations.

He also chose to be baptized, like everyone else. (Please don’t tell me that he was baptized as a mere symbol, or for a pretense. Isn’t that just annoying, if not sacrilegious?)

Jesus knew that to be human he had to repent like we do, and perfect his life instead of insisting he was already perfect.

Now, that’s a dude I can follow.

Perfect people are almost always brats.

It’s mainly because they think they’re perfect.

And we know, for a fact, that they are not.

Jesonian… January 14th, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Seven hours and thirteen minutes of sleep.

Three meals–well, kind of.

 

A couple of snacks.

A wash-up–bath or shower–cleaned my teeth.

 

Two good ideas that went bad.

One bad idea that surprisingly became good.

 

Got verbally attacked.

Tempted to retaliate.

 

Ate something that gave me gas.

Oops–diarrhea.

 

Someone betrayed my confidence.

Awaiting a delivery–very late.

 

A headache after lunch. Am I imagining it?

A little sore throat. Probably.

 

An unexplained, very temporary depression.

Inspired by the sight of a beautiful lake.

 

Paid bills. Short on money. Or am I really?

Grateful for opportunity.

 

Birthday for old friend.

Tired as the day goes on.

 

Don’t want to think about tomorrow.

Not supposed to…

 

This is a summary of my day.

Jesus, too.

I’m not saying Jesus had the same day that I did. But somewhere along the line, he had the same elements in his day that I do all the time. You see, God believed He was being very intelligent when He sent Jesus to Earth to be totally human.

We, on the other hand, have spent 2,000 years trying to prove he was perfect, even though we don’t like perfect people–they turn us off.

Perfect people are too damn perfect.

Even though the Bible tells us he was tempted in every way, just like us, touched by our infirmities, and learned obedience through the things he suffered rather than having it absorbed from heaven, we continue to be uncomfortable with the idea that he shared our “goofyness.”

Matter of fact, insisting that Jesus had diarrhea would cause some of the more holy saints to stomp out of the room, considering you a heretic or at least gauche.

But here’s the question: why would we care about anybody who didn’t care enough about us to be one of us?

So we portray Jesus as half-God, half-man, like some sort of Greek mythology, or all-God and all-man.

We lose the effect of the Gospel because we’re afraid to show that Jesus had days just like ours.

If we can’t relate the Gospel to the 21st century, we need to stop expecting 21st century people to find the Gospel relatable.

 

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