Ah, the “What Would Jesus Do” question. So famous it got its own acronym. It’s been put on millions of bracelets around the world. The WWJD question. The idea behind it of course meaning, if Jesus were in your shoes right now, what would he do? What decision would he make? Are you going to make that decision? If not, why?
A simple enough question. But when really thinking hard about it, there’s a lot of situations that are tough to come up with an answer. Even more than this question, I often wonder, “what did Jesus do?”
Jesus is well known for having been someone who spent time with the sinful of the world. While the Pharisees were on their spiritual high horse, Jesus was spending time with the common folks. Folks who lived less than reputable lives.
I wonder though, what did their conversations consist of? If there were crude jokes, would Jesus laugh? He surely wouldn’t participate, but if he was always spending time with these people, he surely must have made conversation.
As I was talking to a friend about this over coffee this morning, I think some of what it boils down to is that Jesus was known for exactly who he was. There was no confusion about what Jesus believed and stood for because he was so vocal about it.
I think as Christians, we often think we have to “sneak” into a friendship. Almost like we have to prove ourselves to be a good worldly friend before we can show them our Christian side. Or we have to show them how fun we can be before we show them this “Holy” side.
But that’s treating our walk with Christ as though it’s some sort of restriction. Like we want to hide parts of it so we can take people by surprise later. But the truth of living for Christ is that it’s freedom. We shouldn’t have to hide our beliefs because we think it will be a turn-off.
Jesus so clearly taught and lived the truth and *GASP*…people listened and wanted to be around him.
I still don’t know and may never know what happened in Jesus’ conversations with these people, but I do know his character. If our life is so full of Christ and living for him, everything we do will revolve around our faith. It’s not that we force conversation with others about our faith and what we believe, but because it’s so much a part of who we are, it’s only natural that it comes up in conversation frequently.
Don’t think of this has a hindrance or something to be ashamed of. If Christians are claiming to have the truth in God’s word and know the meaning and purpose of life because of it, stop being quiet and sneaky about it. Love others and show them truth. Truth with love