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A life lived for Jesus does not demand from us sinless perfection as is so commonly misunderstood. It is not I that is being perfected during my life but it is Christ that is being perfected in me. A life lived for Jesus is not one of shameful covering up of my flaws in order to present myself as having every earthly problem harnessed and completely under control. It is not in smiling even though I am sad. It is not in pretended to love that which I hate. The power of Jesus in my life is in laying all my sins and imperfections and bumbling ways first at the feet of Jesus not to be hidden there from others; but instead, to demonstrate how Jesus in me overcomes all that overcomes me on a daily basis. Upon honest self examination, there is no sin common to human beings that I haven't committed, if not in deed then in thought. I overcome one and it is replaced by another and my life on earth is a constant struggle against my nature and the weaknesses of my physical body. I truly am trapped within a body of death and there is no hope in me for everything about me is mortal and mortality is life governed by death. However, Jesus is being perfected in me as through my daily struggles of me with me, He reveals Himself ever more clearly and deeply to me; and it is in sharing my imperfections that allows His perfection to shine through me to others. This requires no special Bible knowledge, formula, or sales technique. It requires only of me the kind of surrender that removes all of my prideful shame as his love flows through me to others in acceptance of them as they are, in just the same way that Jesus accepts me.

Jesus the man, in his day, had no earthly power or attractiveness in his person. He was dirt poor, born in a cave with a floor of hardened animal manure. He was of questionable birth, poverty stricken, and uneducated. His life on earth was brief and he died the death of a criminal. His last few years on earth were spent as a vagrant as he traveled among his people speaking of God, thinking it not robbery to make himself equal with God, and was viewed as a crazy man by many, and a very dangerous man by those who held religious power. He sharply reprimanded religious leaders and broke long held cultural traditions.

Jesus was to many a failed Jew, just as many of us who truly love Jesus are also considered failed Christians. Yet, Jesus the man was so focused upon His Heavenly Father, so surrendered to His purpose for His life, that He was truly the Son of God. Though housed within the same body of death as I, Jesus was the true instrument of God upon the earth in earthly form. Through His Living surrender and sacrifice, through the living of a perfectly transparent life that ended in an undeserved execution, Jesus the Son of Man/the Son of God became the giver of Life. Not mortal life. Not life within a body of death; but never ending Life, Spiritual Life that is the precious by-product of belief in Jesus as He is revealed to us and in us.

Dear Heavenly Father, let me ever lay my heart open before your Son, Jesus fully trusting in your protection as He is formed by the power of your Holy Spirit in me. Make me mindful to lift no prideful chisel or earthly molding tool in a self effort to make of my self a poor copy of the true holiness that you wish to complete in me. Let all desire for my glory be laid low and may your Kingdom come as Your Will is done in me and through me on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.