"Let Jesus Be Jesus"

Gah.  It's a challenge...  Excerpts:

...Sometimes we just don’t want Jesus to be Jesus. We want him to be our kind of Jesus. Not the kind of Jesus he really is. Which isn’t really fair, if you think about it. Most of us want other people to know and understand us for who we really are. We want other people to let us be ourselves! But do we try to understand Jesus for who he really is? Do we try to let Jesus be who he really is? When we don’t, we again find ourselves in the devil’s shoes. The devil tempted Jesus to be someone other than the real Jesus. He showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and promised that they could all be his if he would only fall down and worship him. Yet if Jesus were to do that, he would be denying that he is God’s Son. He would be denying himself. But Jesus was true to himself. He always is. And we need to accept that.

This is perhaps the greatest challenge that the temptations of Jesus place before us. They teach us that we’re not to make demands of Jesus; we’re to embrace his demands of us. We’re not to place ourselves above Jesus; we’re to humble ourselves beneath him. We need to let Jesus be Jesus, and not remake him in our image. And we need to follow Jesus, not along a path of worldly power, but the godly path of weakness, sacrifice, and trust. Should we do this, we’ll never have to frantically search for an elusive Jesus. He’ll always be there, at our side...