What Would Jesus Do?
Some might recall a popular catchphrase of the 70’s: “Hey man, WWJD?” It was an acronym for “What would Jesus do?”
Though it was seriously overworked, it was often an effective means of administering either encouragement or shame. It eventually became versatile enough to be used solemnly or with levity. The interesting thing was that sometimes it actually worked.
After all, Jesus Christ was a paradigm of integrity for His people, wasn’t He?
But I used to wonder how anyone could retain his dignity and allow himself to be humiliated and tortured at the same time. Common sense seems to suggest that integrity not worth defending can hardly be considered to exist in the first place.
So what did Jesus do?
He offered Himself up for slaughter yet maintained the dignity He deserved. But did He accomplish this simply because He was God—being the only One able to legitimately execute this particular task of Biblical prophecy and, as a result, live again to tell about it?
If that were true, what would’ve been the point?
I believe He chose to suffer as a man for more reasons than I can understand. But I’m also convinced that, by suffering as a result of true obedience, He demonstrated the essence of dignity rather than absence of it.
I can even conclude that, if my integrity isn’t in tact, then perhaps my ability to obey is compromised as well.
But then, I could strive to be like the Person of Jesus.
Though He suffered pain like any other man would, He chose not to focus on it. As a man, He had the capacity to hate those persecuting Him because it was unjust. But He chose not to.
The things He did—or didn’t do, weren’t necessarily a model for me to follow in every circumstance.
But His reasons were. And His choices paid for my freedom to make the right ones.
That’s what Jesus did.
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“God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
May the Living God of our salvation, continue to provide the richness of Spirit that He has gifted you in your encouraging and building up the body of Christ, just as in fact you are doing!