What Does it Mean to Be Like Jesus?

Luke 5:27-31 New Living Translation
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?” Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent

Today I'm posting the song "My Jesus" by Todd Agnew. Sometime I like this song. Sometimes I do not. I love Todd Agnew's music, but this song strikes me as a bit smug. He says Jesus would not be welcome in his church, and perhaps that is true in far too many cases, but I also grow weary, sometimes, of church bashing. So are you wondering, "Well, if you dislike something about the song why are you posting it?"

The song asks some hard questions, pokes at the "American dream," uses some words we might not care for in a "Christian" song. But in my discomfort at some of what I hear, I am challenged to ask myself if I really want to care for the poor, hang out with "thieves and sluts and liars" and in the end perhaps receive evil for good.

If Jesus walked this earth today, where might we find him? What might he be doing and saying? Would he be welcome at my dinner table, my party, my family gathering? My church? Well, if we knew he was Jesus he would have to be--but what if we did not recognize him? Is it true he would choose not to hang out with "the stained glass crowd?"



Ministries like this one are springing up in cities across America. I found it amazing, refreshing, encouraging--and had to seriously ask myself if I would be willing to participate.