The Year Of Living Like Jesus

The Year Of Living Like Jesus

I Just started reading the book “The Year of Living Like Jesus” by Ed Dobson. This was the book that initially inspired Tim and I to start reading the gospels over and over and over. I was in the Christian bookstore one afternoon, noticed the book and picked it up. Read a few pages and felt inspired. Mentioned it to Tim on the drive home, and voua la, our idea to read and blog was born. Somehow it took me a couple months to get around to actually buying the book and now, to start reading it. And man oh man. Yeah we were inspired by a few good pages, but I had no idea how little we were just scratching the surface of the journey this man Ed Dobson embarked on.
In short Ed set aside a year of his life to try and live exactly as Jesus did. Using the fundamental belief that as Christians Jesus is our Rabbi. And if we are his disciples, we should truly try to be just like our Rabbi. The truth in his thinking is undeniable.
I realized in the first chapter that he was not only trying to learn about Jesus by reading the gospels, he began a journey of increasing his knowledge of the Jewish traditions and beliefs that Jesus no doubt lived by so that he too could live like that for a year. And here we have been, reading the gospels two chapters at a time every morning for the last two months. I wish I had picked the book up earlier. I feel convicted, inspired, challenged and invigorated. Mr. Dobson took it upon him self to learn and follow not only Jesus' teachings, but follow how he ate, dressed, spent his time on the Sabbath, etc. Learn from what we really know about his life. Learn like a disciple is expected to learn from his Rabbi.
While our intentions are in NO way trying to replicate his decision to live like Jesus for a year I have found my self troubled by this question tonight:
Why not?
Why am I NOT trying to live more like Jesus? Why when it seems so radical and absurd to the rest of the world do I too dismiss it as impractical and crazy. I worry about judgment, what other people will think, what the church my fellow believers will think….. Apparently, I really care about what other people think.
The Gospel is not something to read, it is something to live, certainly a different way of living than the rest of the world.
Here is a quote from Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love” that particularly sticks out in my mind tonight.

It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in out day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.


I have some serious thinking and praying to do.