To Be Like Him

Almost fifty years ago, someone planted a seed in my heart - Charles Sheldon's classic, In His Steps.  In this novel, a minister and five of the most influential people in his church and in the town are "forced" to consider what being a Christian really means and what the consequences of truly following Jesus really are. 

These brave souls promise that for one year they would conduct their business and daily life only after asking, "What would Jesus do?".  After asking this question, they promise to wait to act until getting some impression from God.  Upon receiving the impression, they further promise to follow the impression as exactly as they can regardless of the consequences.  That year literally transforms their lives, their church, their community, and many of the communities connected to theirs.

I've never quite been able to "forget" one passage from the book.

 

Is it possible for this church to sing with exact truth, "Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee"?  If we can sing that truly, then we may claim discipleship.  But if our definition of being a Christian is simply to enjoy the privileges of worship, be generous at no expense to ourselves, have a good and easy time surrounded by pleasant friends and by comfortable things, live respectably and at the same time avoid the world's great stress of sin and trouble because it is too much pain to bear it - if this is our definition of Christianity, surely we are a long way from following the steps of Him who trod the way with groans and tears and sobs of anguish for a lost humanity; who sweat, as it were, great drops of blood; who cried out on the upreared cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (185)

 

 

What following Jesus means is a question which will eventually confront every Christian.  We cannot sidestep this issue, nor would I dare to tell anyone how to do it.  However, deal with it we must or "else stand condemned" (15).  It is and was the heart of Jesus's message.  Whenever He invited someone to be with Him, the invitation entailed following Him.  So it is today.  If we would be with Him, we too must follow Him.

 

The older I get, the easier the big things are to do most of the time.  Where I often stumble is in the little things, in my daily routine and relationships.  It's so easy to consider what Jesus would do when praying for someone or speaking words of encouragement or providing for a need or being patient with someone else's unruly child, but it is so hard to remember what Jesus would do when I have a pouting child of my own or a frustrated husband or neverending chores or a pounding headache.

 

Micah 6: 8 says, "He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you - to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  The acting justly and loving mercy are not directed toward God here.  God needs not our mercy nor our justice.  He is mercy; He is justice.  Whom we should treat justly and mercifully is everyone else in our lives - our family, our boss, our co-workers, our neighbors, our friends and acquaintances, our customers, those who serve us, strangers - in other words, EVERYONE WE MEET.  Everyone is our neighbor.

 

It is hard to treat someone justly and to extend mercy and to love someone from a distance else the one loved knows not that he is loved.  Loving like Jesus loved takes involvement.  It takes work.  It takes asking what Jesus would do for this person.  It takes remembering that Jesus said to love God with everything we have and are and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  It takes being mindful of those around us and of those who materialize in our thoughts.  It's not an impossible task.  God can give us the heart and the resources to do it.  In fact, He wants to give us His heart of love and His resources.

 

Have you seen the news lately?  The world's gone crazy.  The way people treat each other is horrific.  Where in paper is the "good" news?

 

I John 4: 12-17 says that if we love each other, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us, that when love is made complete among us, we can have confidence because "in this world we are like Him."  O, to be like Him - to love as He loved, to think as He thought, to see as He saw, to walk as He walked, to be daily conformed to His image, to see others as He sees them, to know God as He did. 

 

To this we were called.  This is our destiny - "because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps."  (1 Peter 2:21)  

 

Jesus still stands today saying, "Come, follow me."  He still desires relationship with us and that we walk faithfully beside Him, filled with the Holy Spirit and obedient to His plans for our lives.

 

My heart was not the only heart impacted by this seed.  Garrett W. Sheldon, great-grandson of Charles Sheldon, also wrote a novel entitled What Would Jesus Do?  It is a contemporary retelling of his great-grandfather's classic.  After this novel's release, people all over the world began to wear WWJD bracelets.  It was the first of many, many bracelets that people began to wear.  I haven't seen too many WWJD bracelets lately.   

 

So, I share with you now this same seed, a seed planted in my heart almost fifty years ago, and challenge myself and all who will hear to seek to walk in His steps, to ask what Jesus would do amidst the circumstances of our lives, to seek God's will and ways.  May God grant us great grace to walk in the manner of Christ.  "Jesus is a great divider of life.  One must walk parallel with Him or directly across His way" (89).