I am so excited to be writing this blog today. I’ve been reading again. (Quiet down over there Sparky!). I was given this book and couldn’t wait to read it for several reasons. I had just heard John Eldridge talk about the book. This man has a gift for speaking and bringing stories to life. I had to see if the book was as good as his presentation of it. I also wanted to see what insights this book might give me. I’m always looking for new insights.
The book is Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldridge. It was released a couple of days ago. It was wonderful! It is about Jesus’ personality. It is about getting to know who he is and what it means to us and our personal relationship with him. It is about taking him out of the stained glass, off of the flannel board and getting to know the real Jesus. It is about cutting religion out of your relationship with him.
John takes you thru story after story in the bible and gives you a fresh look at Jesus’ different characteristics as reflected in them. I loved the way he was able to bring the stories to life in a fresh way and offer some fresh perspective on what may have been going on in each of the scenes. I love the way he brought Jesus to life. I have grown to love authors and preachers who can take the stories in the bible off the page and bring them to life. I read a book by another author over the summer who did the same thing for me, but I’ll talk about that another day. It’s just refreshing to hear well-known stories relayed in something other than the “Charlie Brown teacher voice”.
I love, love, loved the chapter on Jesus’ humility. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really meant that Jesus was a man. What that really meant for him to be God and come to the earth and give all that up and live with all the limitations of a man. What that means for me. How that translates into living like he did with the same power of the Holy Spirit that he operated under as a man. What that means for my relationship with God. The same relationship that He offers to us that Jesus tapped into as a man. I’ve been thinking about all of the things that he did as a man being led by the Holy Spirit and in perfect relationship with God. It seems that there is so much focus on how he lived a sinless life and THANK GOD! he did. I just wonder if there is so much more to his life as a man living under the direction of the Holy Spirit that we have missed because somehow we place his actions in either “man” categories or “God” categories. I wonder if we forget he was a “man” the whole time he was here. But, I am digressing into my own thoughts and not those in the book.
So, if you would like to take a look at Jesus’ personality from a different perspective and without the “religious” slant, check it out.
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