WWJD

“WWJD”

The abbreviation “WWJD” is a very powerful saying. What Would Jesus Do? To live my life in that question is what we all are called to do. We want be “in Christ” and the best way in doing that is to do what Jesus did.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 6:23

Jesus did so many things; He was perfect in every way. The story that Jesus lived could not have been any more perfect. Because what Jesus did was change the perspective on the world.

So let’s start at the beginning, Jesus was born in stable by a virgin named Mary. Okay lets stop there and realize why this is so prefect.

Characterizations of a Stable…
-very loud because of all the animals
-the remains from the animals, and the smell was probably horrendous
-the manger may have had hay in it, and hay is hard and itchy. Not a place where the king of kings should be lying.

So you see that the stable was not the ideal place for the Son of God to be born. If you think about this Jesus is serving other already at this point in his life. He lowers Himself to be born in the lowest of low places, so that others can have the comfort in the inns.

But it gets better, next God sends a might choir of angels to the sky above the field were the shepherds watched there sheep. Now this is odd. Let me tell you about shepherds of that time.

Characterizations of a shepherd…
-poor
-lowest of the low
-like the modern day “gangster”

So why would God do this? This is why it is so perfect. God wanted the Shepherds who were hated and looked down on by the society they live in. This shows God’s love for everyone, because if God can love a shepherd He can love any one. The people in the early church would have understood this. That is why it is so perfect.

Then there were the Magi of the east who came to worship Jesus.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." Matt 2:1-2.

This is important too, because that the wise man want to worship Jesus. I think that if you title has the word “wise” in it, that may mean that there pretty smart. And these smart men went out in faith by following a star in the sky. What this is saying is that Jesus king of the rich and king of the poor. So this is perfect.

Now let us look at Jesus’ ministry, Jesus had twelve disciples. But these disciples are not your normal disciples. Jewish history tells us that to be a disciple of a rabbi you have to educated in the in the Pentateuch and torah, and some student don’t last the education and if the don’t make the standards of the rabbi, the rabbi would tell them to go home and learn the family trade.

When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Mark 1:19 -20

So in the bible Jesus was know as a rabbi, but Jesus did it differently. Instead of looking for the educated, he walked up the Sea of Galilee and saw James and John. Now James and John were education in the torah and when it was time to become a disciple of a rabbi the rabbi told them to go home and learn the family trade. They said in the passage, James and John were working with their father. So what I believe is that they were learning the family trade because they had not been adequate to be a disciple of a rabbi.

So for a rabbi named Jesus to come along and pick James and John to be His disciples was a big deal. James and John jumped on the opportunity to follow Jesus. To be a disciple of a rabbi, a teacher, to learn every thing they know until some day when Jesus send out his disciples to the world.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matt 28:19

So now we have the perfect example of who we want to follow. So you see that the question “What Would Jesus Do?” is a very good question to be asking our selves every waking second of the day. Because that is who we want to be like. It’s how we become in Christ.

So I had an opportunity to go to Rwanda the summer of 2007 and I learned a lot of the lifestyle the people of Rwanda were living. Rwanda is a very poor nation and there is a lot of people with not a lot of homes. And in 1994 there were the Genocides that happen and it brought great fear to many people. The average person in Rwanda has only one meal a day if that and the Water supply is a river or a pond near the place they live. It really ripped my heart out to see the poverty that was before me.

Just to walk down the street you would get many kids and many young teen mothers that beg for money. They would beg so hard, like it was the only thing that would let them get though the night. It was hard to just walk by and do nothing, most of the time I didn’t have very much money on me anyway.

It was a long time before I realized what Jesus would have done.

In the day of Jesus’, He would say that it was hard of a rich man to love God, and easy for a poor to love God. But one thing I have realized in Rwanda is that if a person is poor they have no hope.

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5

But I say there is hope because Jesus said there was hope. So what would Jesus do in this situation? Now, Jesus was not a rich man, money wise but he gave something so much more valuable. He gave hope. Jesus didn’t just hand out money to people because He was rich Him self, but what He did was lay his hands on people he gave stories to the people in ways the people could understand. He would feed 5000 people a miracle.

So I though to my self, money is not the important thing right now, the important thing here is the giving of hope. For Example, if I were to give some one, say 5 dollars to buy some food. Now it would very nice for the moment to have some food, But five dollars doesn’t last forever, So if I would have reached out my hand and put a friendly smile on, this would have made the person feel like there are people in this world that care. Some thing greater that money, I don’t even know what it would be like if someone from the richest countries come to one of the poorest countries to spend time with the poorest people just because they love them. That seems like a great feeling.

Isn’t this what Jesus did? Jesus was so prefect, that when people came around they all wanted some thing. Jesus gave water that quench eternal thirst.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13


Now back to the original question, What Would Jesus Do? Some would say that we don’t know what Jesus would do just because we don’t have that perfect example live on this earth in to day’s world and going through to day’s problems. But I think that if we are in Christ we will see God’s heart, and when we see God’s heart we see hope and we see, life worth living.

So when I walk around, and think of WWJD I stand and remember that I am in Christ, and when I am in Christ, theirs no telling what we can do.