Favorites :: To be or not to be… is that the question?
- Posted by jasondaye on February 18th, 2009 filed in Christ-follower, religion, spiritual formation
I must admit, and sorry if you are offended, but the whole WWJD? concept just didn’t do it for me. For those of you unfamiliar with WWJD? it stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” and the premise was when you run into a situation in life you simply stop and ask “well, what would Jesus do in this situation?” and then respond accordingly. It all sounds nice in theory, but my experience showed it was definitely lacking something.
The problem is this: life happens at life-speed. In other words, we don’t typically have the luxury of hitting the pause button on life and fully assessing a specific scenario from Jesus’ perspective and then acting upon that assessment. So as much as I might have wanted to do “what Jesus would do” it didn’t always come out that way. Yet God’s word indicates that we are to live like Jesus, that we are to live a life of holiness, that we are to have the attitude of Jesus.
It appears the real rub here is the difference between “doing” and “being”… As Jesus-followers we are called not to simply do what Jesus would do but to live as Jesus would live: to be Jesus in our world.
So, how do we stop “doing” Jesus stuff and start “being” Jesus to our family, friends, coworkers, classmates, neighbors, strangers, enemies, and others? Well, it has got to start with God. The reality is that God and God alone is naturally holy. If we are to live lives of holiness then we must be connected to God. Our holiness can only be derived from God… we cannot muster holiness up, we cannot “do” holiness, we cannot whip up a recipe for holiness.
We surrender ourselves to God, all of us. We allow Jesus not to simply sleep in the guest room of our heart with its fluffy pillows and color coordinated décor, but we open all the rooms of our heart to Jesus. We invite him to wade through the clutter of our closets and sort through the junk we have hidden under our beds. And when the Spirit comes across something in our heart that does not honor God, we do not let the enemy use that to defeat us and beat us up. No, we celebrate! We celebrate because God loves us enough not to leave us as we are, and when the Spirit finds something that needs cleaned up or tossed out we recognize that we are spiritually alive!
I cannot live as Jesus in my own power but as I open my life up to God the Spirit empowers me. So it is not my feeble attempts at “holiness” but it is the holiness of God living through me… a gift offered freely to disciples of Jesus who surrender their hearts before God.
So, not WWJD? but how did Jesus live? Not “doing” but “being”!
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February 19th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Great post. I too was a little jaded by the WWJD whirlwind. It occured to me one day that it would be more accurate to say WDJD. What ‘did’ Jesus do. Instead of trying to figure out what Jesus would do while living at ‘life speed’ (I love that term and I am stealing it!), we could allow him to change our lives and know what he DID do for us and live accordingly.
Keep it up my friend.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:27 am
We are given two great commandments. Both centered around love. As we relentlessly immerse ourselves in His great love through a passionate, contemplative, “Im all in” kind of relationship with Him, I believe that our response to others in all situations will be to offer some measure of love to others.
February 19th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
@Don I am definitely with you on the WDJD… I find it is more about the implication that God’s Word has on our lives than the application. In other words, how does God’s Word and the Way of Jesus shape our life as opposed to how do we apply/plug-in a Jesus moment to this or that event/situation. Another way to say it is that implication is about being whereas application is about doing.
@berryman I believe that is key… the idea of immersion as opposed to case-by-case application. Again, it is about being rather than just doing. (although when you are ‘being’ you will also ‘do some doing’