What happens when you live Jesus' message?

David Elliott's book group in Florida continues its study of Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels this year. Elliott posts three blog entries since Barque's last write-up of his coverage:

11 January 2011 — Everyone a Healer
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/everyone-a-healer/

18 January 2011 — Face Your Demons
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/face-your-demons/

26 January 2011 — Transfiguration and Metamorphosis
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/transfiguration-and-metamorphosis/

In this latest entry, Elliott includes:

"The challenge of this chapter is in the everydayness of the reality. "When you finally 'get' the teaching of Jesus and begin to live by a new set of rules – love, forgiveness, conviviality, community, healing, and freedom from demonic preoccupations – your clothes don’t suddenly become ultra-white and your face blindingly luminous, but you will be, and appear as, transformed. Your presence will have an electric charge." (p.102)

At this point we became quiet and suspicious of the whole thing. Can this sort of reality actually be meant for us? Or is this just for stories from the Bible and church history."

He asks, "What if only 30,000 people in Tampa Bay truly lived the Jesus message? Isn’t that the goal of HOPE?"