Are You An Expert At The Jesus Juke?

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added ONE paragraph break - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

Are you an expert at the Jesus Juke? Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes, where I, Jon, talk about whatever it is that I want to talk about today, whatever I'm thinking about, stream of consciousness style, no rules, no plan. I just wander. You're welcome to come and wander with me.

Had to park in a different spot. If you hear cars driving by, that's why. It's kind of a warm, very mildly warm, a little bit muggy. It's one of those cloudy days where it's still bright enough to need sunglasses here in northern Illinois. Still a nice day, though. The morning was spectacular, as always.

But what do I mean by a Jesus juke? I only ever heard this from one friend who brought it up many years ago. And what we were talking about, what a Jesus juke is, is where you try and turn the conversation spiritual in like a forced and awkward way. It just doesn't fit. So, you know, like a juke, you know, a sudden move, like it's like a...

You know, we were chopping down the trees in the backyard. You know, Jesus was a carpenter. That kind of thing. Always trying to spiritualize everything, bring Jesus into everything in an awkward and unnatural way. That's a Jesus juke. I have grown. I'm a minister, a Bible teacher, whatever you want to call me. But I have grown weary many years ago and still weary of just super spiritualizing everything. Kind of making a

awkward spiritual thing out of everything, but I try and be authentic. And Jesus is an authentic part of my life. God, the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, they, he, them, are an integral, or maybe intrigable,

but an integral part of my life. So it's natural for me to talk about them, about God, about the things of God, how God applies to life. So I don't hold back. If I'm having a conversation with someone, even if they're not a Christian, and whatever I'm about to say, God is relevant, I just say it. No need to turn the conversation anywhere, nothing awkward. But I also don't like it when someone kind of tries to squeeze Jesus in in an awkward way.

I hate fake spirituality. I much prefer authenticity. I hate that kind of fear-based, got to make sure we somehow turn everything to a conversation about God, right? I'm like, everything is a conversation about God, even if you don't say his name. But you don't have to awkwardly turn it that way.

So this has been, you know, a big part of my life for a while. I kind of revolt a little, which is kind of weird seeing as I'm a Bible teacher. So I'm supposed to always be super spiritual, right? Always be the one who does the Jesus juke. But I try not to. Some people might feel I do when I just naturally talk about whatever having to do with God.

Just this morning, we were telling stories about tattoos. No, I don't have any, but the people that I was talking to did. And I mentioned the guy who was in Bible school and had an awkward tattoo. And everybody laughed. So I don't know if they felt awkward that I brought up God and Bible school and missions. But it wasn't the Jesus juke. I wasn't trying to squeeze it in. It was the natural thing to say at that moment from my life experience. But this all led me to think, even in my own prayer times...

With God, I'm kind of done with trying to force a fake spirituality onto anything, even in my own private life. I'm just not interested in... Now I'm spiritual. I'm heavenly minded. I'm like a spiritual giant. I'm just so not interested. I'm just in the authentic relationship with God, relationship with other people, and talking about all those things in as natural a way as possible.

But I was in a conversation this morning where Brother Lawrence came up and the practicing the presence of God. So now I'm going to shift a little bit towards what I'm going to call an authentic habit of focusing on God. I've learned so many things about that, focusing on God over the years. If you are, for example, doing the craft that you're great at, that your job is,

And even if God is in the back of your mind because you are focused on not cutting your finger off but cutting that part just right, you're doing that before God. You are, in a sense, focused on God because you're doing what he wants you to do. You're creating beauty and excellence and quality and an improvement for the lives of your fellow man through the work of your hands. That is thinking about God.

But Brother Lawrence, a very famous, I don't know when, long time ago, wrote a book, or I don't know if he wrote it or if someone kind of wrote the book about him. Some of it reads like an interview, like letters to and from Brother Lawrence. He was like a monk, or I don't know what his status was, but he was at a monastery. And he had these practices that the book ended up called Practicing the Presence of God.

And I read that when I was younger. And I read it again a few months ago and realized how much this philosophy had ingrained itself in my life. And I had forgot where I got it. I don't even know if Brother Lawrence is the only place I got it. But I have this way, this habit...

of turning my thoughts to God regularly and naturally. I mean, I'm not condemning myself. Oh, I'm not being religious enough. I need to think about God. Not like that.

It was a habit cultivated years ago of just talking to God all the time. To the point where I remember one time I was in France. This was many years ago. And I used to go out and sit on this bench and have these prayer times where I was just talking to God and walking around. I would face...

in whatever direction, south towards Africa, even though we were on the Mediterranean because we were in Marseille, but I wasn't standing by the water, and I would lift up my hands and pray for North Africa and just kind of talk to God about prayers, intercessions. And later, one of the kids threw a translator, because it was literally like mobs of Muslim kids running around, kind of terrorizing the neighborhood in a hysterical way in this...

housing complex, tall, tall buildings. It was all housing, mostly from North Africans. And one of these kids said, my mother says you're crazy. I'm like, what? Who's your mother? Why would your mother know me? This is a totally irrelevant story, but this is what I want to talk about today. So I'm talking about it. But she said, my mother says you're crazy, he said. I'm like, what do you mean? And they said, you talk to yourself.

And I was so confused. I was like, what? And then I realized I'm standing out there in the morning at this park bench in the view. It's early in the morning, so not everyone's up, but in the view of hundreds and hundreds of windows of this housing complex. So they probably all think, who is this tall, white, crazy guy sitting on a bench like a homeless dude, probably dressed like one too back then, pacing around, waving his arms in the air, talking to the air. But, okay.

That was an irrelevant juke. That's what that was. But I built this habit of just talking to God all the time. Real conversations. Really telling him what I'm feeling about. Sometimes...

When I would realize I've kind of wandered away, I just, Lord, I turn my heart towards you. I turn my mind towards you. Draw me to you. I want to think about you. I want to worship you. That kind of thing. Or just, this is frustrating, Lord. You know, this is making me angry or this hurts or this is a beautiful day. If I'm enjoying a beautiful day, I'm telling God this is a beautiful day. Thank you. This is a beautiful day.

And just kind of always returning to this focus of a life of worship. Now you can't, like I said, you can't be like always focused in this specific way, depending on what kind of work you're doing. Brother Lawrence talks about doing things like, you know, mopping the floor. I don't remember the exact. He had some pretty lowly duties there in the monastery. And he talked about just fulfilling his duties while thinking upon God.

So I would contrast this habit to a Jesus juke because it's just a habit. And it's an internal habit worthy of practicing. Now, it's not worth beating yourself up or trying to beat yourself into doing this. Whenever someone says, I should pray more.

I can't judge them because I don't know what that means between them and God. But me, I kind of wince a little because I'm like, yeah, but that's, you know, it's like if you come home and, you know, you've heard this analogy before. You come home and see your wife and she's delighted to see you and you're a little bit sad because you're like, I should see you more. It's like, what? Why not just enjoy? Enjoy her now. Enjoy her presence now.

And I'm not condemning you if you've had those feelings. I have. There's times I don't see my wife enough. But there's times I don't feel like I'm spending enough time with God in the sense that I desire to, though. I desire to. It's not like I'm not performing enough to be a Christian or I'm not spiritual enough.

I am not prepared for the next Jesus Duke. I'm not thinking about God in such a way all the time where I'm prepared to suddenly shift into a conversation about God. Fake. Fake. It's just an authentic, real, moment-by-moment. And I don't think there's any way to build this except to build it over time.

And it does, in my case, it did require sometimes a longer time with God. Sometimes hours, you know, going for a walk. I mean, to this day, I used to, you know, feel bad about my time with God in the morning because I couldn't get focused or whatever. Just today, I just realized my mind is racing because I've had two intense days. And I literally just sat in my chair.

in the living room looked out the big huge glass sliding glass doors at the there's a courtyard out there then unfortunately once he could pass the courtyard there's a parking lot but it was a beautiful day beautiful day and it was actually a cool day at that point and i just sat there i turned on some worship music and i just sat there i didn't try and do anything

I mean, if you're with someone you love, I mean, sometimes you need to focus on something you need to work on together, or you need to have good conversation. These all need to happen, just like they need to happen with God. But sometimes you just sit together.

And I've had many times like that. And usually, sometimes there's not enough time. My day is crazy, you know. But sometimes eventually it's like I start to simmer down and I start to think, hello, Lord. You know, good morning. I literally, good morning. Thank you for my life. Thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you that you decided to create me. And then I just talk about whatever. Whatever it is I want to talk to him about. Sometimes I have a few patterns that I kind of follow at times.

But I don't know. I hope that helps you. Don't do the fake. Don't cover over your reality of who you really are with some sort of fake spirituality. This is one of the reasons. I'll admit, sometimes I don't like going to church. I don't have any judgment towards the specific church I'm hovering around right now. I don't know if they're this way, but I've been many times to church or around Christians where it's just like this kind of plastic...

And praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Which, nothing wrong with those words. Nothing wrong with saying those words. But I'm like, are you really like this? Or is this what you're like on Sunday? So I'm always just kind of like, I'm a little suspicious. I guess I've known people too long. Maybe I have to repent of some cynicism there. You know, just, I wonder, how real is this? Is that really how you talk all day, every day? Or is this your Sunday talk?

I'm not trying to condemn anyone. If you feel condemned, I'm sorry. That's not what I'm trying to do. But seeing as there's only like one listener anyway, you're probably not feeling condemned. Condemn. Condemnation is worthless. It'll never help you change. I just, you know, authentic. Be real. Hello. How are you? Oh my gosh, he didn't say Jesus. Doesn't matter.

If you're really pursuing a relationship with God all the time, He'll come up naturally. Work rather on an authentic, ongoing, constant, frequent, repeated relationship with Jesus of all kinds. Long times with Him, short times with Him, moment-by-moment times with Him, prayer times with Him, worship times with Him. Get that in your soul.

so that it is who you are, and you don't have to fake it with anybody. If you have to be plastic and smiley and a Jesus juker when you go to church, something's missing on the inside. It's better. Like, I had to work on ways, like, what do you do when someone says, how are you today? Because I always feel like, unless it's literally just passing on the sidewalk...

I might say okay. But I used to have all sorts of little tricks, I would say, that would both sometimes intrigue the other person. Sometimes it was just a way of dodging the fact that I didn't feel like I was doing good. But I'm not going to sit there and puke on you right now.

So I might say, I'm surviving, working on thriving. That could be a Jesus joke if you do it fake, but I'm being authentic. It's a little rhyme, a little ditty, but it is authentically what I'm doing. Right now, I'm just working it through. It's not, you know, I'm having a hard time or whatever, but I'm in the background. I am working on thriving, and sometimes I am.

Like if you ever meet me on the street, sometimes I have been overflowing with joy all day. God has put so much joy in my life. And it's wonderful. And you'll meet me and think that's who I am. And that is who I am. Another day you might think he seems distracted or down a little. I probably am. And you know that's also who I really am.

Someone once asked me, because I was telling them I speak, I stand up and speak, and I said sometimes I would feel so much power when I stand up and speak and then feel like really weak.

You know, when I sit down, like I have nothing in me. And they would say, oh yeah, that's what happens if you go up front and put on a front or a face. I'm like, no, you don't understand. That guy standing up front with enthusiasm and zeal, preaching the Word of God, that was really me. I mean, the Holy Spirit is moving, obviously, but that was my actual me. That wasn't fake. Not at all. That wasn't putting on an act at all. I literally felt the zeal up there and I feel down now.

People can change moment by moment. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I exercised spiritual warfare, and that's why I felt a little down. But authentic is the key. There's nothing wrong with learning the right context either. I mean, probably if people are expecting you to get up and speak and they want to have their faith built up,

You know, possibly droning on about your hard day. It might not be the right time, but you're not being fake then. You're just being authentic but wise or strategic. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with recognizing the context. You know, this isn't the context for me to moan about my day. This is the context for, with faith, bringing the Word of God. Or whatever. This is a context where this person needs my encouragement and I have it to give. And I can do it without being fake.

I might be making a hard choice to not focus on my woes. Right? So there is all that. But at the end of the day, spend time building the real thing between you and God. Do that. Spend your energy on that. And you will not need to do Jesus jukes.

Jesus will flow out of you naturally over time. And maybe God will give you little clever things to say. I don't know. Maybe he'll give you those. But you don't have to force it in. You don't have to kind of get a crowbar out and wedge Jesus into the conversation. When you're talking about something where, of course, he's relevant, but maybe the Jesus juke just doesn't fit. Right? Don't do it. Build authenticity, not affront authenticity.

Okay. Does that help you? Does that encourage you? Send me a message. Gospelofeverything.com slash contact. You can send me a message there. Tell me why I'm wrong, why I'm right, how it blessed you, why you were bored out of your mind and you're never going to listen again. Whatever you want to say. This is whatever I want to say. That will be your chance to say whatever you want to say. But God bless you so much. There's a nice breeze blowing through my car right now.

God bless you so much. Have a lovely day. Be blessed. 

Jon and Jon's Voice Notes signing off.