What Did Jesus Do? (WDJD)
In the mid-1990s the WWJD (“What Would Jesus Do?”) fad began and was popularized by Christian youth leaders. The acronym was worn on plastic wrist bands, printed on tee-shirts, displayed on bumper stickers, and marketed on many other objects. Items were still available when I was pastoring in the early 2000s.
At that time, I did some research and discovered that it wasn’t my grandmother who first came up with the question, “What would Jesus do?” It was actually based on a book called In His Steps by Charles Sheldon published in 1899. This was a novel about a fictitious pastor who, at the beginning of the book, challenged his congregation to live the next year without making any significant decisions in life before asking and answering the question, “What would Jesus do?”
One day while driving in my car and listening to a familiar Christian radio station, I heard an advertisement for an upcoming “Christian cruise”. Some well-known Christian music artists would be on the cruise and would perform multiple times during the cruise. At that time, it seemed to me that we Christians often find activities that we like to do and then “Christianize” them or ask God to bless them because we want to feel good about doing them. That day in the car, the thought came into my mind that maybe Jesus wouldn’t even be on a cruise like that.
I had been raised in a Christian home and church that taught me to follow the example and teachings of Jesus. Coupled with the recent revelation I had, I no longer asked the question, “What would Jesus do?” in the situations that I was in for fear of participating in and “Christianizing” activities that Jesus probably would not even spend time doing. Rather I began to look more closely at what Jesus actually did, and I began to pursue how I could imitate him. I began to ask the question, “What did Jesus do?” (WDJD) The scripture that best describes this to me is 1 John 2:6 which states, “Whoever says, ‘I abide in him’ should walk as he walked.”
So what are we truly called to do as Christians? Is it to pick activities that we enjoy doing and then “Christianize” them or ask God to bless them? Or is it to actually look at the example and teachings of Jesus and imitate him?