More DNA

Jesus said that following him didn't involve putting on an outside symbol that meant there is goodness inside. He said that following him did involve an inside change that also changed things on the outside. This kind of talk upset the religious leaders of the time because they liked outside symbols of inside goodness. They knew all the symbols you were suppose to have, and they knew who had the symbols and who didn’t. It was a pretty big job keeping track of all the outside symbols people were suppose to have, but they were pretty smart guys. Plus, having clear cut symbols made some things a lot easier. For example, the religious leaders could say who was right and who was wrong. If you had more outside symbols than the person you disagreed with, you were more good than they were, and you were the one who was right. You were especially right if you were one of the religious leaders.

Today, some religious leaders think following God is like putting on a team jersey. You make a decision to do it, and then you do it once. They think everyone on the team should look like everyone else on the team, act like everyone else on the team and talk like everyone else on the team. To be on the team you just have to decide to wear the jersey. Once you are on the team you need to look and act and talk like the team captains because they know how the team is suppose to look and act and talk.

Once you are on the team you also have to try and get as many people as you can to be on your team. To do that you need to convince them to decide to wear the team jersey.

Some religious leaders also think the team has to make adjustments to the team jersey over time. Every decade or so the team jersey might have to be updated to make the team relevant and appealing, so people will agree to wear the jersey and then be on the team. It is very important to make sure people are on the team. Jesus said the religious leaders have it all wrong. Following God isn’t from the outside in, like putting on a jersey. Jesus said following Him is like DNA. It works from the inside out. Jesus himself, as revealed in scripture, is the spiritual DNA. Once you decide to change your spiritual DNA, he’ll do it for you. He’ll switch your DNA for Jesus-DNA and you’ll become a new creature. It's just like our physical bodies, we are all made from the same human-DNA, but we are all different people. In the same way, when we accept Jesus-DNA, we are all made from the same Jesus-DNA, but we are all different people. We are all new, but different creatures.

Inside-out Jesus-DNA makes it harder to tell who is on the team and who isn’t, because each person ends up different. Some religious leaders don’t like that idea because they like deciding who is on the team and who isn’t.

They also like telling the team how it should look and act and talk. But if everyone is different it makes it harder to say how people should look and act and talk.

Also, if everyone is different it makes picking the team captains harder because all the outside symbols of inside goodness will be different for each person. This is maybe the thing the religious leaders don’t like the most. They really like being the team captains. Jesus is saying they won’t even be the water boys.

Jesus said there will be one way people will know if we are on the team—except he never really called it a team—but anyway, He said there will be one way people will know if we have Jesus-DNA. That one thing is love. Jesus-DNA starts from the inside but then goes to the outside and connects you to other people. It changes you from the inside and you want to start loving people outside of you more than you love the inside of yourself. You probably won't be very good at it, because you've been so used to loving yourself more. But you'll start to want to do things for other people rather than do things for yourself, and eventually you'll actually start doing those things for other people. So the change that happened inside of you is now outside of you affecting other people, and it connects you to other people. Jesus said that was the symbol of goodness inside. But the goodness isn’t your goodness, it’s Jesus-DNA goodness that’s growing a new creature and connecting you to other people.