By John Pierce
While driving to Macon’s Vineville Baptist Church — which, by the way, has an excellent choir — on Sunday morning, I was listening to gospel bluegrass on satellite radio.
Larry Sparks was singing “I Want To Be Like Jesus.” He got my attention.
“Some want a big church with a choir; some want to be a preacher; I just want to be like Jesus.”
That’s pretty good — and a departure from most of the gospel bluegrass lyrics about living in mansions and walking on streets of gold and seeing mama.
There are many worthy goals to set for ourselves and our communities of faith. Yet none should surpass the daily and ongoing quest for our attitudes and actions to more clearly reflect the life and teachings of Jesus.
My friend Pat Terry takes the opposite perspective from Sparks to make that point well with his reflective song, “If Jesus Was Like Me.”
With such good intentions, it is easy to spend so much time trying to do things for God that we miss that which should be first and foremost: to be more like Jesus.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
