The Wrong Jesus

Most people really want to follow "Jesus as I would like for Him to be"  instead of "Jesus revealed in the Gospels."  Or, to put it another way a lot of folks want to follow Jesus as they want Him to be instead of the One who walked the roads of Galilee and preached about a Kingdom not yet come, but already here.  What the "Jesus as I would like for Him to be" crowd really want is a Jesus who can be controlled, One who is tolerant and loving so much so as not to ever offend anyone, and One who is content with being second in our order of priorities.  

Of course, Jesus is not into making us comfortable.  Making us comfortable has nothing to do with why He came and what took Him to the horrible cross.  He is not Someone who sees our sins and winks an approving eye in our direction so as not to make us feel badly about who we are and how we are living.  Some might remember the story known as the story of woman caught in adultery in the eighth chapter of John and say that Jesus did nothing to make the woman feel bad.  He did not speak harsh convicting words of judgment to her.  It is still doubtful that she left His presence that day as the person who was suddenly thrust into it by the judgmental spirits of others.    

What is often overlooked in this story of a woman freed from an awful sense of guilt and wrongdoing is the way her tormentors left.  As they tried to rain down judgment on the broken and shamed woman, Jesus spoke those famous words about the one without sin casting the first stone.  And, then He knelt down and wrote some unknown something in the ground.  When they heard His words and the silence which followed, the Word says, "...they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him."  (John 8:9)  Surely, they left with the uncomfortable weight of the sin they carried.  Anyone who comes to Jesus with sin and leaves feeling comfortable is someone who follows "Jesus as I would like for Him to be" instead of the Jesus sent from God to be the Savior of all of us.