WWJD? - No Ifs, Ands or Buts

Spirituality Column #262
November 15, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

WWJD? – No Ifs, Ands or Buts
By Bob Walters

Christians ask “What Would Jesus Do?”

A better question is “What DOES Jesus Do?” An even better question is “What does Jesus do that is a model for my life?” And an even better question than that is “What IS Jesus doing in my life right now?”

Asking what Jesus “would” do splits a couple of linguistically problematic hairs.

A common critique of “WWJD” is that it comes dangerously close to putting “me” in the place of Jesus. Becoming “like” Christ (Philippians 3:10), and actually being Christ, are two vastly, massively and dramatically different things. Jesus commands us to love God, not to be God (thanks to Satan, Adam and Eve learned that one the hard way). Jesus said, “Remember me,” not “Be me.” Be careful.

Also, the word “would” signifies what grammar class calls a subjunctive mood or “conditional” phrase; it implies “if” and introduces doubt. Jesus is not an “if,” He is eternally God and human. Sectarians debate the “nature” and personhood of Jesus after the resurrection but the Bible says He is eternally fully God and fully man.

That’s the final answer, mystery and all. “Jesus is,” not “Jesus if.”

Certainly our earthly, human lives are full of subjunctives, contradictions, ifs, ands, buts and maybes. I project my worldly pride and fight for my “rights” yet often realize later, I’m not in the right. Other people see my failings, which robs my integrity, and I hate when that happens.

Jesus had perfect integrity and never wavered in his responsibility. Not one thing about Jesus was “proud” but everything about Jesus had integrity. Jesus came as a servant (in Greek, dulos, “slave”) without pride or rights, only responsibility to God. He was steadfast in that integrity, and the prideful Pharisees and many others hated Him for it.

If we are shooting for “like Christ,” the starting line is to emulate the integrity of Christ’s commitment to God.

On the up-side, “WWJD” very importantly puts Jesus in our lives today, as in … “What Would Jesus Do … right now?” We don’t “carry that old rugged Cross” because of what happened, like the hymn says, “On a hill far away.” We carry our cross today because Christ is alive today, and because what Jesus did “once for all” with grace and passion on the Cross perpetually restores our eternal human relationship with God the Father … a relationship that perpetually renews with our ongoing faith in Christ.

Jesus is never past tense, and is never woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.

Jesus is “I am.” Right now, and forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) observes that pride and rights are almost always about “me,” and that integrity and responsibility are almost always about God.

© 2011 North Faith Publishing

Where Pride Properly Resides

Spirituality Column #241
June 21, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Where Pride Properly Resides
By Bob Walters

Years ago I had a colleague who would compliment my work by saying, “I’m proud of you.”

It annoyed me. I took pride in my own work and it was both unsatisfying and a little creepy, frankly, to have my work evaluated from the standpoint of someone else’s overreaching pride. I, um, had plenty of pride of my own.

A decade later I began attending church, discovered my life in Christ, was well-mentored by some amazingly intelligent Christians, read the Bible, and over time began to look really, really hard at the pride in my own life vs. the humility of Jesus Christ. No way have I “cured” my own pride, but I now understand pride from a biblical perspective.

And that perspective is this: Pride is the Lord’s alone. The Lord is humble, yet only in Him may pride properly reside. Simple, huh?

I know … it’s a seeming three-way collision of intellect, logic and faith, the kind that keeps “smart” people out of church. But once we understand pride as a “God” thing, humility as a “Jesus” thing, and faith as a human thing, it starts to make sense.

The Bible talks about pride a lot. In the Old Testament, where we learn so much about God, God is constantly telling people that their human, worldly pride will be their undoing, that it is willful, arrogant, foolish, sinful and in several ways destructive to them and offensive to God. The problem boils down to this, God tells man in Ezekial 28:2,

“In the pride of your heart, you say ‘I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god’ … but you are a mere mortal and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god.”

The modern dictionary isn’t much help here, because it defines “pride,” generally, as “justifiable satisfaction.” What God says throughout the Bible is that the “pride” He detests is mankind’s misplaced, unjustified, self-satisfying and self-directed glory, which I interpret to be the biblical opposite of “justifiable satisfaction.”

Glory is God’s, not ours. Pride belongs to God’s wisdom, not man’s.

Jesus sets our standard and example: He was humble before God and Man. Therefore rather than harboring pride in our human selves and worldly situations, our pride must reside in our faith that Christ is our sovereign Lord.

God knows, it’s no sin to be proud of that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is thankful for God’s blessings rather than proud of the shiny spots in his life.

The Upside of Great Despair

Spirituality Column #236
May 17, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Upside of Great Despair
By Bob Walters

It’s a darn shame but a fact of life that often we have to bottom out before we can be lifted up by Christ.

Non-believers find the logic of that truth impossible to understand. That’s partly right – it is impossible – because at its core Christ’s truth is about faith, not logic.

We generally, rationally, think we have the best shot at saving ourselves from whatever malady might befall our human existence. “My brain and my logic are all I need,” we reason. “If I’m strong enough, I can fix this.” “I believe in me.”

Religion, many people think, is a cop out. I have had real conversations with smart people – some of them dear friends – whose view of someone “finding Jesus” was accompanied by a long, low whistle and a dipping motion of the hand.

“People turn to Jesus when it’s as bad as it can get …”; then comes the long low whistle and hand dip, implying, “They’re a mess. It’s so bad, they found Jesus!” The perceived awfulness isn’t so much a concern for the despair, suffering or hardship a person faces – that would take Godly compassion – the awfulness is turning to Jesus.

Oh no! Not Jesus! You’re a goner!

Our pride and egos are horrid things, and the power of Jesus Christ is opposite everything the world thinks it knows about power. In the world, power is the imposition of will. It’s living one more day. In Christ, power is love and freedom, and eternal life at the throne of God.

“Our egos are prisons that keep us from the love and freedom of Christ,” notes my teacher George. What a great statement. Our egos want power because we think with power, we can forestall death; maybe just for today or tomorrow – and we admit we’re all going to die someday – but power is about my strength.

We cannot tap into God’s inexhaustible supply of strength when we try to compete against it with our own. Christ is like an experienced lifeguard, George analogizes. He knows when to approach a drowning person. After letting us fight and tire awhile in the deep, swirling water of our sin and pride, when we realize we can swim no more, Christ comes and gets us.

The power of God is to forgive and to love, and His ultimate strength is His compassion. That’s the gift He gave us all in Jesus Christ.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) found Christ when things were going fairly well; God somehow overwrote his sizable ego.

Pride, Humility and Humanity

Spirituality Column #143
August 4, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Pride, Humility and Humanity
By Bob Walters

While pride is the king of all sins and humility the queen of virtues, it is our humanity that Christ came to save.

Pride was the undoing of many strong people in the Bible. Humility, we learn, is the key both to wisdom (Proverbs 11:2) and to accepting the grace of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 5:5).

But our humanity is the real issue of Salvation. We are fallen and we can’t get up; not by ourselves. Pride, humility, guilt, condemnation … all those things … are but symptoms or conditions, not the disease Christ came to cure.

The disease, of course, is The Fall. In Genesis 3 Eve and then Adam, despite God’s goodness and clear instruction, decided – with Satan’s urging – to play it their own way; to live in the Garden on their own terms instead of God’s.

Perfection interrupted.

Christ eventually died on the Cross, not to kill our pride, to make us humble, to inflict guilt or to condemn us. Christ died to save us, so that humanity could return to perfect communion with God the Father in eternal, holy fellowship.

Nothing in the Bible suggests Christ’s saving mankind amounted to God inventing a Plan B after Satan and man interfered with Plan A – Perfection. God must have known what would happen when He created something perfect – humanity – and then gave His creation both a spirit and freedom.

How we use the spirit and freedom God gives us adds up to our humanity. The word “pride” in Hebrew, Greek and Latin means, essentially, “to make more of yourself than you really are.”

To be human certainly requires a sense of self awareness. Call it ego or whatever you want, but it is a gift from God that we can think and choose and act and create. We just need to be ever mindful that we are a creature, not the Creator.

If we boast that Christ gave us more than we deserve, because we deserve nothing, that is a very positive kind of pride. If we despair and feel unworthy or guilty of accepting Christ’s love for us, then that is a destructive humility.

So let’s keep it in perspective. In Christ we encounter saving grace, the Creator God, and history’s only perfect human. We must use our own humanity to temper our pride and humility so that we leave room for God to guide us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) got this mnemonic from his friend Bill: PRIDE – Piously Recognizing I Do Everything.

Pride, Patience & Humility

Spirituality Column #33
June 26, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Pride, Patience and Humilty
By Bob Walters

I hate to admit it, but I know more about pride than patience or humility.

That's exactly the reverse of what Christ tells us about living a Godly life.

As our perfect example, Christ is without pride, has unlimited patience and lived on this earth in total humility.

The Bible gives us many standards for a faith-based, Godly life:

Abide in Christ. Be humble. Serve the Lord. Have faith. Love one another.

Pride means we are trusting our self instead of God, and therefore very likely bearing a burden or anxiety – unnecessarily – that Christ’s death has already removed.

Patience means we are trusting the Lord; and truly trusting in the Lord means you’ll never have a problem with pride or fear or doubt because you know that God, not you, is in control and you trust Him totally. (That’s a really tough one.)

Humility means you don’t worry about yourself; you worry only about God’s will.

This is gibberish to a non-believer, I realize. Christians – because Christ the perfect God / perfect man is eternally interceding with God – believe God is in control of their individual lives. “God is in control” is an especially tough truth when you or a loved one is hurting. Or even if you’re just impatient.

Pride is the king of sins because we strongly pursue our self interest instead of God’s commands. That’s what happened in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) when Adam and Eve were tempted to doubt God’s goodness.

Impatience is my personal specialty, because when I see something I want …

Uh, good time to bring up humility – what “I want” isn’t important. How can I figure out what God wants?

Reading the Bible, asking God in prayer, and then listening for His voice, is a great place to start.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, reads Philippians 4:4-7 every day. Also, see Galatians 5:22-23.