Has Jesus Had A Mid-Life Crisis?

How awesome, that Jesus has had a complete personality change in recent

times and his priorities have toned down so dramatically as well.

We know that Jesus is kind, loving, encouraging, warm and watching to care for our needs.

Sure, prior to recent times we knew him to be the defender of the Truth and Righteousness, who had little time for niceties when that Truth or Righteousness were in question, ignored or even just taken lightly, by anyone. But……..

We now know Jesus to be sweetly caring – as he was with the little children that came to him, sat on his knee and he blessed them. He is no longer our reprimanding teacher for trying to send the children away. And to tell a desperate woman simply asking for help for her daughter, that it was like taking the children’s bread and tossing it to the dogs, err, well, you can see what I mean, obviously some personality adjustments were in order. Jesus is now sweetly caring.

We know that Jesus is gently teaching and encouraging us in the way to go, but he is no longer the scary teacher, that the disciples were afraid to give a wrong answer or when they just could not ‘get’ what he was saying. But we know that Jesus only gently teaches and encourages us now.

We know that despite our sin and pride, Jesus is ever patient with us, even though he insulted the Pharisees with the truth, by calling them the worst he could – ‘whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones’ and ‘sons of their father the Devil.’We know he only really said those things to bad people, but to us, he is ever patient and kind.

We know that Jesus understands, that to motivate people, one needs to love and encourage them, even though long ago, Jesus told his friends that they had hard hearts, and he rued the fact that he had to put up with them for so long.

We know that Jesus approves of our modern, rich, hype-focused churches because they are the only ones growing here in Australia – they are so exciting and fun – life is too short for bland. And they provide what my family needs. Don’t know what possessed him when he made that whip and angrily drove them out of the temple. You just don’t do something like that. Man, that would upset soooo many people. *awkward* Wow, if that happened now, lots of people would never come back to church.

Oh and speaking of ‘righteous anger’ as Jesus had in the temple, we know that there’s a place for it, but it ain’t here – Jesus would not approve, because it is not ‘what Jesus would do’ or what we ‘real’ Christian’s do. He may have done it in Bible times and he Will do it at the end, but not now, it’s just not him.

We know that Jesus is not self-righteous when he corrects us, he is love. He knows that it is all in ‘THE WAY’ you say it. If you say it nicely, nobody gets upset – they hear what you are saying, are totally reasonable about it, and they thank you for it. It’s just the way things work. If someone gets all upset, you know that the way you said it was wrong, and most likely, what you said was wrong too. Everyone around you knows that and you are just being self-righteous.

We know that Jesus is ever forgiving and never condemning – just like with the woman caught in adultery. Though nowadays, he would not tell that poor hurt, humiliated lady, to ‘go, sin and no more!’ that’s totally insensitive. No, instead he would be giving her a big hug, telling her she is so special, in front of everyone. And then he would be severely condemning those evil Jewish men for the gross and public humiliation they brought upon her. If only he was here now to do it properly.

We know that Jesus wants peace, because he IS the Prince of Peace, and never would he now say, that he came to bring a sword, rather than peace, for that might upset someone. These days he does not say provocative things of truth, to upset the equilibrium. PTL, thank God for that.

We know that Truth and Righteousness are still important to Jesus, but not how it used to be, I mean it’s all about relationship – this new and different Jesus is someone the world can actually relate to, and be a friend of, unlike what he was in Bible times. I don’t mean to be rude, but, well, he was a bit old fashion, and while we certainly do not believe in evolution, it is a bit like that – because obviously, we know more now than they did in the past.

Jesus grew in favour with God and man, but then, we are thinking that he may have ‘lost it’ somewhere there when he grew up, life has a way of doing that to young idealists, both then and now. We know the young ones are where it’s at – that’s why our pastor mostly wants them. Perhaps if Jesus did one of those awesome ‘Developing Your Potential’ classes, he would’ve got ‘it’ back. He would have known how to get on with people around him much better and have more of an impact for God – gaining many, many more people for the Kingdom. After all, that’s what God wants isn’t it – more people saved. Yes, Jesus just wants us to bring them all in. Don’t get too caught up in discipleship requirements, accountability and maturity, because that will alienate many people from the ‘narrow way’.

Before, Jesus’s aim was to turn the whole world and church system upside-down, to make people think, react, get angry – whatever, so they would avoid hell, but luckily, we seem to have convinced him that you don’t make friends or reach anyone that way. We have so many much better ways and programs to reach people now. There are some of course, that persist in the old ways, they just can’t seem to get it in their heads, that they could be mistaken, but I’m not going to waste my time on them. Better things to do you know, like worshipping God, times of fellowship at Hudsons and Hoyts, and self-time, gotta have that. And we now know that hell isn’t really quite so bad after all (those old time hell-fire preachers really went way overboard, very unhelpful) and Jesus really loves us, so, hey, just sayin’. I mean, some people go on like they think they have a life-’n-death cause, in some real man’s army. Damn, get a grip man and have a real life, you frump.

We know that Jesus is about ‘being positive’ he knows nobody wants the gospel from some negative truth speaker, whereas, in Bible times he spoke more about hell *ugh* than any other subject. Jesus just would not hang around with negative people if he were here with us today, in fact, he probably came up with the saying ‘you cannot hang around negative people and expect to live a positive life.’If it’s not positive, it’s not nice. And if someone you know is a negative truth speaker, God wants you to just hit the delete button and move on. Life is way too short for negative. If one wants to fly with the eagles, one cannot hang around with turkeys. Pretty simple.

We know that Jesus is very forgiving- that’s why he died for us. He does not make a big deal over our failing with temptation and getting a few things wrong. He was human like us and knows it can be hard. Yes sure he does not approve, but it’s no biggie like it used to be in Bible times, or even 30-40 years ago, after all, we are only human. I’m glad I didn’t live in my parents' era – when they used to believe in the old ‘be holy’ thing. The old Jesus way was quite legalistic when you think about it with what we know now – like totally forgiving an idiot in your life, well it’s just not natural, who do you know that genuinely does that instead of secretly holding despising in their heart? Or thinking adulterous thoughts or not living humbly, or not grieving over sin or greediness and always wanting more stuff…………..No, I’m not saying that if we all excuse each other, it becomes acceptable sin, it’s just that no one has the right to be judging me. Hey, we are Christians, listen to the way we talk, you can tell just by listening. It was different with the Pharisees – they didn’t actually live it as we do.

Oh, and talking about judging – now that’s a biggie. Jesus was not judgemental of people – he even said ‘I did not come to judge’ and ‘JUDGE NOT THAT YOU BE NOT JUDGED’ so there you have the whole doctrine, what else is there to say? Yes, of course, the old Jesus personality told us to ‘remove the log from our eye so that we could see clearly to judge our brother’ but don’t tell anybody I admitted that ok No just joking, but that was the old way, you know like the ‘old Law’. No, if anybody points out wrong behaviour or attitudes, they are just getting into judging others and not loving them as Jesus would. It’s very wrong and I don’t know what people are thinking when they do it.

We know that Jesus will provide our every need and never leave us hungry, though I’m not sure why he does this in many other countries and even lets them die of hunger and persecution, maybe they believe in the old Jesus, tsk, tsk, tsk, that’s why we need to preach our gospel to them. It’s sad but boy, do they need an upgrade.

Jesus is not religious and we do not have all those ‘traditions of men’ that the Pharisees had. No, we follow Jesus and the Bible. We are Bible-believing Christians, well, there are some bits that are not so acceptable to us, but we will be very tolerant of you if you don’t talk about them. Otherwise, our anger against you will be justified, because you will be violating things that should not be, even the world understands this. How come some people just don’t get it? They should just leave the rest of us alone, like Jesus, he never forces anybody to do anything and he is the All-powerful, Creator of the world. He is just not in your face like he once used to be. God wants to bless us, we are special to him. God wants us to be happy you know, again, that’s why he died for us.

Yes, we know that Jesus is kind, loving, encouraging, warm and watching to care for our needs because he knows it’s all about relationship, what a difference this last 30 or 40 years has made on a God who never changes.

Yes, Jesus is only nice and kind, and much nicer since he had that personality change.

In fact, when you think about it, he is a much better God now, than he was before and even the world agrees with us, so it must be right – so many could not be so wrong.

Awesome, Jesus is such nice person and I feel so blessed. Amen?

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Explanation:

Such is the vast difference between Jesus Christ of the Bible and Jesus of the modern church today, that it staggers me that so many see no difference. One would think that indeed, Jesus did have a major personality & priority change or maybe has had a mid-eternity crisis. How shocking it would be, if we the Church, could see that we are the very people that Jesus warned us of. In this article, I have tried to use comparison with a little humour to desperately try to convey the point. I hope it works and that many of you are upset by what is written for the glory of God