As for Christ-followers today, some are free and living kingdom life here and now, others have yet to hear the news and are still in bondage, and tragically, some have heard but can't believe it is true and so continue to walk in fear as a slave.

We can no more control Jesus than we can control a raging storm. But a common deceit runs along the lines that if we behave just right and pray just so and posture correctly, Jesus is almost duty bound to give us what we desire. That desire may be for good things like safety or health or success and so he becomes our Divine Genie coming through on our behalf.

Watching TV a while ago and not paying much attention, I was brought back to the moment when I overheard, "Surround yourself with faucets, not drains."

That made me think of my normal circle of friends and workmates. I do enjoy plenty of faucet-folks and not many people who drain. The truth for a follower of Jesus is that we benefit from both in our lives. I'll get to that later…

The Oxford Comma debate plops down as a worthy stand-in for many of our disagreements in life, politics, and faith.

(If you didn't see what I did there, you don't get the joke. My auto-correct wants to delete the final comma as Gmail is definitely in the anti-Oxford club.)

Oftentimes, when riding my bike alone, I listen to Tim Keller's podcast. For nearly 30 years he was the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC. In the late '80s, Tim and his wife, Kathy, founded the church and they strongly believe in bringing the good news of Jesus to the city and frames his talks and books in terms of the educated, cultural and skeptical soup that is New York. When I listen to one of his sermons …

Coming off a mountaintop experience like no other, where Jesus shows his glory and talks with Moses and Elijah, and where God the Father who cuts Peter off mid-sentence with, "This is my beloved son, listen to him," the group returns to a somewhat chaotic scene. A distraught dad, his tormented son, a crowd wanting to see some action and religious leaders scrutinizing what this uncontrollable rabbi would do next.

Imagine for a moment what Jesus was thinking when he began his ministry.

A mainstay of our belief, distilled from scripture, is that Jesus enjoyed what theologians call a hypostatic union, meaning he was 100% Human and 100% God, but willingly set aside his divine privilege and primacy to live as a servant to the humanity he created.

No matter what I know to be true, or how often I remind myself of the benefit of walking the Jesus Way, or my being aware of how unsatisfying living apart from God proves to be, I stumble again and again into old behaviors that don't look at all like a Jesus-follower. Let the self-recrimination begin. I used to think I was alone in this, at least I would grow out of it...but I keep doing dang stoopid stuff. And I have a suspicion that you can relate.