October 8, 2020
“Be more like Jesus.”
It’s one of the most exhausting, oversimplified, and simultaneously overwhelming goals for most Christians.
But what does it even mean to be more like Jesus?
Christians consider Jesus to be the greatest man to have ever lived, so it’s obvious why they feel the best way to improve their lives is to be more like Jesus. But is that even possible?
The Church will say it isn’t possible because Jesus was without sin. It’s yet another of the Church’s many paradoxes: be like Jesus, which is unachievable, but still try. This concept has been examined elsewhere, so in this article I’ll tackle it from a more practical perspective.
In my book, I go into detail about the seven life areas most important to men and describe how the Church influences them heavily, why it’s wrong, and how to fix it. If, when you were a Christian, you found Jesus to be completely unrelatable, the reason isn’t because he was without sin; it’s because he only has one life area whereas you have seven.
If he did in fact have all seven, then the writers of the gospels didn’t record that information.
Let’s explore:
1. Jesus’s Money
Jesus had no money, no need for money, and seemingly no income. It’s stated that he was a carpenter before he started his ministry, but it seems to be generally assumed that he stopped being a carpenter when he started preaching. This no-income, low-overhead lifestyle is very difficult to emulate in the modern era.
2. Jesus’s Health
No mention is ever made of any sicknesses, ailments, or anomalies that may have affected Jesus. However, his mental health has been called into question by some scholars.
3. Jesus’s Family
Outside of brief mentions of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’s brothers, the gospels provide no information about the family of Jesus. The lengthy and contradictory genealogies given in Matthew and Luke are irrelevant for this topic in the same way that my and your genealogies are irrelevant to our day-to-day lives.
4. Jesus’s Social Life
Obviously, everyone knows about Jesus’s buddies, the twelve disciples. However, these relationships look nothing like the social circles of men today. Were you ever friends with a guy who, in his mind, was always right? Always trying to teach you lessons? Tell you how to live and behave? Tell you what to believe? How often did you want to hang out with that guy? Certainly you didn’t want to follow him around town every day.
5. Jesus’s Hobbies
Jesus wasn’t reported to have any side interests outside his ministry.
6. Jesus’s Relationships
None, according to official Church doctrine. This may be the most unrelatable aspect of Jesus.
7. Jesus’s Spirituality
This is the only area where it’s even remotely possible to be like Jesus. His spirituality was everything. The entirety of his documented ministry was about his praying, teaching, healing, and leading. It’s possible for a Christian to try to emulate this lifestyle in the modern era, even though it’s very hard.
Christians may argue that Jesus’s spirituality is the most important thing about him—or the only thing that we need to know about him—and thus proves my point. But how many Christians living today actually emulate Jesus’s spirituality accurately? It’s a very small minority.
There are some Christian missionaries that give away all of their possessions and nomadically wander the world, evangelizing everyone they meet. They pray all day, worship all night, fast often, and do very little else with their time, attention, and lives.
The Church doesn’t enforce this lifestyle on its members even though it’s always telling people to “be like Jesus.” No, most Christians around the globe have jobs, houses, cars, televisions, spouses, and iPhones.
As I explain in my book, men are happiest when their seven life areas are optimized and balanced. Focusing only on your spiritual life to the exclusion of the other six life areas will not make you happy, even if you’re a Christian trying to emulate Jesus.
Therefore, not being like Jesus is a preservation of your own happiness and quality of life. Not being like Jesus is best practice for living a healthy and balanced life.
So why do churches keep telling their members to be like Jesus? When they say this, what they typically mean is to be a good person, be faithful, follow all of God’s rules, and evangelize others into believing that Jesus is their savior.
This lifestyle more closely resembles those of Peter and Paul rather than Jesus. Peter and Paul went out into the world and spread the teachings of Jesus after he was crucified, much like people in the Church are taught to do today.
Perhaps the Church should start advising its members to be more like Peter and Paul.
If you’ve recently deconverted and are finally being honest about the fact that your time in the Church did not make you truly happy, it could be that you spent too much time trying to be like Jesus, and thus downplay the other seven life areas that are necessary to make you happy in the modern era.
Improving and optimizing the life areas that you repressed is the key to moving forward from religion into a happier, more meaningful life. This book will help you get started today.