THINK ABOUT IT

Friday, March 22, 2003

WWJD: In His Steps and Me

                A few years ago there was a fad or movement among Christian teens called WWJD. There's a good chance you saw or wore bracelet, or whatever imprinted with the initials WWJD (which stand for "What Would Jesus Do?). But do you know the story behind this fad.

                It began over century ago, when a minister named Charles Sheldon wrote a book called In His Steps (one of my favorites). It takes place is an ordinary city called Raymond, and starts when one Sunday morning at First Church, Pastor Henry Maxwell is preaching a sermon about how we need to follow Christ's example of giving our selves and truly loving others.

                The service is interrupted when a homeless guy stands up & walks to the front of the church. He says lost his job over a year ago, yet not a single person in town has helped him find another job--not even the preacher. The homeless man then says, "I was wondering as I sat there under the gallery, if what you call following Jesus is the same thing as what He taught. … What do you mean when you sing 'I'll go with Him, with Him, all the way?'… My wife died four months ago…Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing 'Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,' and remember how my wife died in a tenement [a rundown apartment] in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too." He went on to say, "A member of a church was the owner of the one where my wife died, and I have wondered if following Jesus all the way was true in his case… It seems to me there's an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn't exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don't understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following His steps?"   With this, the man falls over and dies.

                The following Sunday, the minister makes a proposal: He's looking for volunteers willing to promise themselves for an entire year to do nothing without first asking the question, "What would Jesus do?"  The volunteers must then do exactly that--no matter what happens.

                Fifty people make agree to do so and right away, incredible things begin to happen. The editor of the local newspaper has been accepting lucrative ads from the local bars. Would Jesus do this?  No, he decides--and cancels the ads.

                A young singer gives up a promising career on the stage to sing at tent meetings on rough area of town. A young girl from a right family takes in a homeless woman, to the horror of her family.  A businessman decides that Jesus wants him to make his employees as warm & comfortable as his own home.

                Some of these people pay a high price for their obedience. They loose jobs, fortunes, family, & friends--just as Jesus warned.  But they also learn the joy of following faithfully in His footsteps.

                A few years ago, a youth leader in Holland, Michigan was so inspired by this story that she had bracelets made bearing the letters "WWJD" & gave them to the kids in her church.  The idea caught fire, & new, millions of kids have them, there are T-Shirts with it, and even a CD released by various artists that features a song by Big Tent Revival called “What Would Jesus Do?”

                But the WWJD idea isn’t about wearing bracelets or T-shirts or singing a song any more than “In His Steps” is about buying or reading a book. What both are about is allowing what Jesus would do to decide everything you do, big or small and allowing God to do incredible things. In Philippians 2:5, Paul says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus”. What was Jesus’ attitude? The next few verses say that [Jesus,] being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross!”

So even if you never read “In His Steps” or buy anything with WWJD printed on it (or even like the whole WWJD thing), my prayer for you is still that you will do 2 things. #1- Get to know Jesus. Read about him in the Bible (start with Matthew, Mark, Luke or John). You can can’t do what he would do if don’t know what he would do. And #2- Before you do anything, ask what Jesus would do. So many things may not matter (grape or strawberry jelly on your toast, the blue shoes or the white one, etc.) but many things will (do I go to that web site or not, should I talk to my parents like that, etc.). While the WWJD movement may fade, I pray the WWJD idea would always grow.

His… Daryl Miller