Test tube Jesus

Remember Chemistry class in high school? I hated Chemistry with a passion. I still have no idea why I had to learn that Gold is actually "Au" on the periodic table of elements. Now, there is a useless bit of information that is taking up room in my brain. It is probably housed in the compartment that could be used to solve world hunger, and I only need that much more space to solve it, but "Au" is hanging out there, never to be removed apparently. What I did like about Chemistry class was when we got to play with the beakers and test tubes.
I remember the teacher telling me to put the right amount of the liquid labeled "A", and the right amount of liquid "B" together in the test tube for a desired result. Of course, I would follow the directions the first time, but that got old real quick. In no time at all I would be wondering to myself, "what if I mixed a little less of "A" and a little more of "B", and maybe threw in some potentially hazardous "C" and then some…..", and without fail my experiment would end in disaster. The point is that I think we do the same thing when it comes to following Jesus. We like to say we follow Jesus, but it is really a Jesus we create, isn't it?
We like to set up our test tube and our measuring spoons and pull our Bible out. When the real Jesus calls for a level spoonful of love, we take the level spoonful and dump most of it in the test tube but stop short at the measuring line that says to love our enemies. We see that the recipe for the real Jesus asks us to put 10 droplets of tithe, so we put in 20 and look to the person next to us to make sure they see how many drops we put in. The recipe for the real Jesus calls for 2 teaspoons of caring for people less fortunate than we are, and we just sift in enough until it starts making us a little uncomfortable. See, the real Jesus cannot be concocted in our religious labs. The real Jesus cannot be tampered with. He is the same all the time. There are no other versions of Him. There is only 1 true Jesus and the only way to find the true Jesus is to study the real Jesus and choose to follow the real Jesus completely, not just partially. Are you studying the real Jesus or are you creating one from your own test tube?