Who do you follow?

 

Everyone has a Jesus.

 

Which one is yours?

 

A man drives a custom-made Lamborghini on an island in the Pacific Ocean. A critical part in his transmission fails, and he visits all the mechanics on his island and discovers that none can help him. The owner knows that what he needs is the work of the company itself. The problem is that the company is in Italy, and he and his car are far away.

So he shares his problem with the baker on the island, who offers to put a baguette into the transmission. The owner tries that, but it doesn't quite work. He then consults a doctor, who recommends an antacid. The owner puts that into the transmission, and it bubbles a bit but does nothing. He tells the beauty salon manager about it, and she does a wonderful manicure on the engine. Thinking this will do the job, the owner drives the car and it still doesn't go.

 

Millions of people, indeed billions, live their lives like this. They know what they really must do, but they adopt "solutions" that feel good for a bit but keep them in emotional and spiritual agony. It is easy to see how so many are lost in this sense. What is harder to understand is that there are so few who can really help them and so many who think they can. They offer a Jesus that is not Jesus at all. Indeed, the very best counterfeit Jesuses are tendered by brilliant and militant religious operatives who've known for centuries that as much as materialistic culture or pious religion keep people from Who they really need, it is good, custom-made Jesuses that will destroy them. They also know that the more people they can get believing in these Jesuses, the fewer people there are who actually know and love the real One.

What the Lamborghini owner needs is not a baker, doctor, or manicurist. He needs the Lamborghini company. But since he cannot reach it, he must do something else contact the company, and have them send a certified trained mechanic to the island.

This is precisely what one racked by his or her sin needs: Someone who loves with Jesus' love. Just as the Lamborghini company is the one who made the car, Jesus is the one who made the man or the woman. But just as the mechanic must really know Lamborghinis, one sent by Jesus must know what it is like to be loved by Him, and when he or she is following another Jesus, that is impossible.

So the world then is left with false Jesuses, false loves, dashed hopes, and the wreckage of lives ravaged by sin. People spend great effort denying sin, denying God, denying that they even have a Jesus, but the fact is they do put their trust in something. That something is a Jesus, even if it is the most adventurous, engaging diversion intended to get them feeling good about themselves and their lives. Taking refuge in their "lifestyles," their sin remains, and it haunts them no matter how valiantly they try to divert themselves.

 

If your Jesus isn't the Jesus of Scripture, then Your Own Jesus is a baguette in the transmission.

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Some of those other Jesuses

Prologue >> Chapter 1

 

 

This page was originally posted by David Beck at yourownjesus.net on October 2, 2004