What did Jesus do? WDJD?

We hear all the time of “what would Jesus do” but I have a few problems with how this plays out.

1) We've turned “what would Jesus do” into a monitoring of our bad behavior. If you’re in a situation where everyone is making fun of someone…WWJD? If you get really angry at the guy who cuts you off…WWJD? If you’re kids come home and aren't respecting you…WWJD? But what about the good He did?  Since I’m learning not to become “sin conscious” (aka don’t mess up, don’t do wrong, do this, but not this) and instead become “righteous conscious” (aka what good can I do here? how can I radically love people? What would flip people out in the best way possible?) I have to begin to ask what would Jesus do in a multifaceted way.  So this now asks the question… What DID Jesus do?

2) What DID Jesus do?  “He lived for us, died for us, rose again.” Correct. “He loved people.” Correct again. “He was nice to people.” Also, correct. But once we take a step past the Sunday school answers that get us the checkmark and progress the lesson onto snack time, we have to ask, “Seriously though, what exactly did Jesus do?” Ever wonder what it would have been like to walk with Jesus for a day just to watch the way He carried Himself, the way His face responded to the religious foke or the beggars? Ever wonder how His eyes worked His way through a crowd? How did He sneak off/blend in through the crowd when everyone was there to see Him? What was His tone like? How often did He laugh? Smile? Burp? Did He kick a rock along the road as He walked just for fun or to think? Did He spin his staff occasionally as He walked? Did He have pep in His step or was He always worn down?  These are some of the things I think about, but we’ll have to wait for another day to talk about these. What I find interesting is how we hear many sermons on following Jesus, and then also hear different aspects of what Jesus did.

• Jesus preached everywhere He went so our number one priority is to preach the gospel at all costs wherever you go.
• Jesus met people’s physical needs by giving food and water and healing them before He preached so our number one priority is to get them food, water, and doctors before we preach – mercy missions is vital.
• Jesus disciple people. His whole ministry time was showing the 12 disciples, (and a few others who were close to Him) what it means to follow Him and walk the way He walked, so discipleship and building up believers is our number one priority.
• Jesus preached to the least of these so we need to go into the slums and take care of them.
• Jesus was always around non-believers teaching them, so our number one focus is evangelism.
• Jesus was always challenging the religious people, so we should attack man-made religion and take them down.
• Jesus was always doing miracles and bringing the kingdom, so we should be doing miracles and bringing the kingdom.
• Jesus was destroying the works of the devil everywhere He went, so our number one focus is to go to places where the devil has strongholds and destroy them with Jesus name.
• Jesus simply hosted the presence of God, so whatever He saw God saying or doing is what He said or did.

I think that is probably the most accurate answer. Jesus was God’s son, so He talked to God like a Daddy. He says He was sent to accomplish what His Daddy sent Him to do. He wasn’t concerned with His own plans but what His Daddy’s plans were. So then we begin to ask, “What are God’s plans?”

3) Before we take off down this next question, I’d rather point out a slight flaw in my thinking which I believe we all do. It comes right here at this turn. While it’s good that we want to know what God’s plans are so we know what to generally look for, it’s at this point that we’ve skipped over the relationship part with God and jumped directly to “Ok, what do you want me to do? What do I do now so I fulfill my duty, not be punished, don’t feel guilty, make you happy, honor you, and can hold my head up around other Christians?” We don’t say that directly, but that’s the general feel that we have. We want to know what it is that God expects out of us and what He’s doing so we can go do it.

4) It’s honorable to want to please God, but the idea that God intended was for us to do life with Him, not for Him. If it was for Him, God would have kept a list of dos and don’ts and told us what we should be doing then sit back and watch, occasionally throwing in input for correction. (Perhaps, this is kind of your view of God currently.) But instead, God sent Jesus to reconcile us together. He gave us His Spirit to now live INSIDE us so that we can communicate with Him. Our old self is crucified/killed with Jesus, and now Jesus lives in us. Jesus loves to talk to Daddy God (God the Father). Holy Spirit loves to talk to Daddy God. There was only one time that Jesus and God weren’t in perfect communication and doing life down here together, that was when the weight of human sin was put on Jesus and He cried out “Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?! Daddy! Daddy! Where did you go?! Why did you leave me?! What’s going on?!” It was so devastating because for the first time EVER, Jesus and God weren’t in constant communication doing life together.

So that’s what Jesus did. He communicated with God and did life with Him. He understood that He was a son of God and then spent time with His Daddy and did what His Daddy did.  (John 5:19)

By the way: I don’t disagree with the sermons that push evangelism, preaching, taking care of the needy, doing miracles, destroying works of the devil, meeting people’s basic physical needs, or anything else that we see Jesus doing. I just don’t want us to catch an idea that we go run off and do for God because Jesus did it, when Jesus died to unify us with God so we didn’t have to “do for God” but so we could “be with God.”

So as we spend this intimate time with God, we begin to learn His heart and His natural tendencies (the list mentioned) and can learn to pick up on what He’s saying easier. At the same time, He is God and does whatever He wants (Ps 115:3), so prepared to be like the disciples, surprised at whatever what was coming next, but still ready and willing to do it.

All that being said, I still will enjoy going back and reading through the gospels to see what exactly Jesus did to see what I could be doing. I hope you check it out too.