What Would Jesus Do?
If you wear the bracelet, you get off easy. If you walk the talk,
you’ll stir up a hornet’s nest.
Years ago as a young believer, naïve and full of zeal, I came to think
that being like Jesus meant we should battle in prayer to heal,
deliver, and encourage hurting people. That’s what my ministry
beginning was like. Somehow I’ve gotten away from it and I confess that
I miss it greatly.
I assumed then that everyone who claimed to be a Christian and
certainly every pastor would be delighted to see more people becoming
more like Jesus and doing more of his works. Before I became a paid
professional pastor, that’s what I used to do. Then I found out that
doing the works of Jesus had a lower priority in the religious world
than having big crowds, fancy buildings, and keeping every body under
control of the system of our unspoken expectations.
It’s not the written expectations that hold us back nobody would dare
put on paper what is wordlessly communicated. For example: Don’t get
too passionate for Christ or too burdened for souls, it may become
emotionalism. Don’t hold small prayer meetings in your home, it may get
out of order if an elder isn’t there. Don’t prophesy out of turn, it
may be imperfect or you might miss the mark. Don’t pray for the sick,
only the elders are authorized to do that. Don’t attend other meetings
across town, they may have error. Don’t plant another church or preach
elsewhere unless we’ve sent you, or else you will be in rebellion.
How can obeying Jesus be rebellion? To this day, the seat of Moses has
not lacked a Pharisee to sit in it and issue new decrees.
There’s something about the clerical collar that chokes the spiritual
life out of good men who used to be spiritual sponges. All of a sudden
they know everything. The spirit of adventure, of learning, of lowering
themselves to admit their need, departs. They quit humbly spreading the
kingdom to small circles of intimate acquaintances and start managing
the crowds, building the facilities, raising the money, holding
advertising campaigns to reach the world. I’m saddened by this outcome
of our success.
We’ve become “professional clergy” instead of men who simply follow and
imitate Jesus. Our prayers get pious; our demeanor gets cynical; our
preaching gets hard; our family life suffers. People around us feel
used instead of treasured. How do we get out of this trap? We turn and
we bow down at the feet of Jesus. He hasn’t changed… we have.
The road back to reality is the road of repentance. It is the way of
honesty and humility that first gave us our taste of salvation.
As I read the New Testament concerning the life of Jesus, it seems to
me that he led a fully balanced life. Yes, he went to temple when he
was young, but he also preached in the streets to the unsanctified
throngs, mingled with sinners, and held small meetings frequently with
confidants who followed him to learn his ways.
They knew what Jesus would do because they watched him, shared life
with him, and knew that he walked his talk. That’s the definition of
integrity: it is the same through and through. Even the traitor Judas
would later confess, “I have betrayed innocent blood.”
One of Jesus’ ways was secret prayer. He was always moving from one
prayer meeting to another. He talked with God like He was his Father.
Why, he even prayed with his eyes open! In between times of prayer, he
was fellowshipping with real people. And along the way, he stopped to
heal people, to forgive sin, and to break oppression off of them.
Sounds like fun to me. Does it to you?
This company of un-churched, un-bathed non-religious pioneers ate
together, drank together, sat around the fire talking, rode through
storms on rough seas, and then worked miracles outside the sanctuary
under the noses of the Pharisees. “Hypocrites, white-washed tombs,
murderers of the prophets,” Jesus named them and shamed them.
Those same ordinary men watched Jesus demonstrate God’s kingdom through
the power of the Holy Spirit. He demonstrated it by driving out demons,
forgiving sins, curing diseases, and encouraging beaten-down people.
Why, he even prophesied to blatant sinners! That, my friends, is the
kingdom of God in a nutshell. We need it today.
The food, fun, and fellowship along the way turned out to be the icing
on the cake. A bond of covenant love knitted their hearts together. No
formality, no religious piety, no rigid rules, no legalistic “thou
shalt nots.” Just men and women being progressively liberated and
becoming whole, and in the process, doing real damage to Satan’s realm
as many victims were set free. I like the thought of it, don’t you?
This band of brothers also saw Jesus get roaring mad at religious
leaders who burdened people with rules but never lifted their loads. In
church circles, honest emotion isn’t allowed. It isn’t sweet. You can’t
do that here. Not right, you know.
Later, after training by doing (not lectures), Jesus sent his disciples
out to do what he had been doing. “You go do it, too,” he was saying.
He didn’t keep the authority to himself. He delegated to them the power
to drive out devils and heal diseases. He shared his anointing with
them. He made every person who believed in him an agent of his kingdom.
He didn’t create a new elite priesthood who alone had the franchise;
instead, he distributed gifts freely to his whole body.
Recently I had a conversation with an experienced supervisor at one of
the world’s largest and fastest growing companies. He told me that his
purpose was to help the people under his care develop, to use all of
their gifts and talents, and to be promoted beyond where he was. He
said if they succeeded, then he was a success.
My heart cried silently inside. This secular manager knew more about
God’s ways than most preachers. I said in my heart, “If only every
pastor viewed every person on every pew as a soldier in the battle and
would not rest until everyone under his (or her) influence was equipped
to wage war and to win in the name of our King!”
My brother Don was recently sharing fond memories of us growing up in
Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland, Florida. He said Pastor Strader
fostered the attitude of “Go do the works of Jesus. If you mess up,
we’ll clean up your mistakes after you.” In that kind of healthy
atmosphere, young laborers in God’s work could experiment and could
learn to stretch their wings and soar.
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“What Would Jesus Do?” © 2005 By Ron Wood, Touched by Grace Inc., P.O.
Box 12749, Wilmington, NC 28405. Write us at ron@touchedbygrace.org.
