Jesus Set The Example We Should Follow

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Set The Example We Should Follow

“For I have given you an example,

that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

                                                                        John 13:15

I hope you don’t believe that Jesus was mostly concerned that his followers feet should be clean.  When Jesus calls any of us with the words, “Follow me,” he is not inviting us to simply trot along behind him getting our feet dirty, but rather inviting us to watch, listen, and learn all about what he does, to benefit from his example in order that we should do for others what he has done for us.  Christ never encouraged anyone to speculate on what he might do, but, by his teaching and his example, established a very clear record of what he actually did, so that we, like the lawyer in Luke 10 who grasped the lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, should go and do likewise.

Knowledge of what Jesus did, which I hope the several hundred WDJD blogs and posts have helped to illumine and clarify, is not enough if we fail to do as Jesus did.  Faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior is essential, but apart from putting our faith into action, apart from doing as Jesus did, well, as the author of the Letter of James put it, our faith would be a dead faith.

Similarly, works in and of themselves, apart from knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ, are at best of temporal value, lacking in the spiritual power necessary to be enduring and transformative.  And, make no mistake, what Jesus did was always, through and through, enduring and transformative.  After all, here we are, some two thousand years later, and the work Jesus did is still impacting and changing lives every day.  And what we do in Christ can too!

Father, thank you for revealing to me what your Son, Jesus has done for me.  Jesus has truly transformed, and is daily transforming, my life.  Help me, by the power of your Holy Spirit and your Word at work within me, to do to and for others what you have done and are doing to and for me.  Amen.