The Matrix Reloaded...

There are four men in my life. Each has his own role. Three of them are awful, one of them is good, and only two of them are real.

The first man in my life is the me I want you to see. This is who you know me as. This is the me that cares about others. This is the me that reads his Bible at Starbucks. This is the dedicated employee me. This is the blogger me. I repent and confess only of those sins I am okay with you knowing I do.

The second man is the Jesus I believe in. This is the Jesus that allows me to explain away greed as taking care of my family. This is the Jesus the prompts us to manifest destiny. This is the Jesus most of us pray to. This Jesus wants us to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. This Jesus just wants me to be comfortable in life.

The third man is the darkest man. This is the real me. The one who sins, though it's not just my sinful nature. This is the me that wants to sit on the couch all day. This is the me that slacks off as much as he can at work, yet makes himself look as good as he can. This is the me that is racist. This is the me that is scared. This is the me that worships. More often then not, I spend more of the real me's time trying to hide my sin then I do trying not to do it. No one really knows the real me. Sometimes not even myself.

The fourth man is Jesus. I don't know a lot about this man really. I read about him, but most of the time, my pre-conceived ideas only allow me to hear what I want to hear. So I only get to know the parts of Jesus that I want to know. This Jesus is very mysterious. He says things like, "Those that aren't for us are against us" and, "Those that aren't against us are for us." But He is the Savior of my soul.

The bible tells us in second Peter to grow in the grace and knowlege of Jesus. I had a prof in college tell me this meant to become more like Jesus and to know more about Jesus. The problem with this is it takes the two real men in my life.

To really grow to be more like Jesus calls the real me into action. The fake me will try to make you think I am growing by reading the bible in public. By blogging about things such as this. By praying long and lengthy prayers. But it takes the real me to wake up and do this.

To get to know Jesus I have to be okay with learning something I didn't know. Most of the time that's a really scary thing. Think about a subject you feel like you know a lot about. Maybe it's math or football or beauty pagents. Go ahead, think of one. Now pretend there is a law or a rule or some requirement that you had no idea existed.

Did you know that Jesus only talked about Judgement Day once? I know He mentioned His second coming and signs of the times and all that, but about the activities on that day He only spoke once. He said He's going to put us into two groups. One on His right and one on His left. The group on His right, He will thank for taking care of Him on this earth and welcome them to heaven. The group on His left, He will curse and send to hell. They will ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?" And He will say, "You didn't recognize me? You didn't see the real me in everyone else?"

It will be the real me that stands before the real Jesus. May they both become more known to me.