EP 90: What Would Jesus Do?

We don’t have to wonder or make wild guesses about what Jesus would do — the Bible tells us clearly how He lived when He was here on earth, the kind of things He prioritized, and what He expects of anyone who chooses to follow Him.

What Would Jesus Do?

Full transcript of Episode 90

Hello, friend. Welcome to Episode 90 of Loving Life at Home.

This week, I’d like to discuss what it means to follow Christ’s example, to live a life that closely emulates and reflects His, to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” And then follow through.

The problem is, if you don’t ever open your Bible, if you don’t read and know and have a good understanding of God’s Word, then you don’t really know what Jesus would do.

You can only guess.

I have a very sweet, tender-hearted, and well-meaning friend who earnestly tries to always do what Jesus would do. At least, she does what she thinks Jesus would do. For her, WWJD is a guiding life principle.

But whenever she asks herself that question, she really isn’t considering what the real-life, historical, righteous Son of God would do in a given situation.

What she really means when she asks herself that question is, “What would I do if I were Jesus?”

Like many others in our modern culture, my friend has created a god (with a little g) in her own image, and she worships that instead of worshiping the one true God as He has revealed Himself through His Word.

This popular version of Jesus loves and accepts and approves of and affirms everyone exactly as they are. He doesn’t judge, doesn’t step on any toes, doesn’t question any life decisions, or try to change anybody.

Her Jesus wants everyone to be happy. He never talks about sin or sacrifice. He never convicts, never calls anyone to repentance, never allows anyone to suffer any natural consequences for their poor decisions or persistent rebellion.

Her Jesus says, I”‘m okay, you’re okay,” and never makes waves or rocks the boat.

However, that is not the Jesus that we read about in the Bible, not the Jesus presented in the pages of God’s holy Word.

The fact is, we don’t have to guess what Jesus would do because Scripture tells us clearly. We know by reading the New Testament that Jesus didn’t look out for number one. He didn’t put Himself first or live for Himself or work only for the weekend or grab all the gusto He could or do what feels good.

We don’t have to guess how He lived or what He did because the Bible spells it out. Passages like Philippians 2 tell us exactly what Jesus prioritized and what He expects us to prioritize as well.

There we read:

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others."

By the way, if you’re a wife and or a mother, you have an endless string of opportunities to put this verse into practice right within the four walls of your own home, to put others first and to consider their needs as more important and more pressing than your own.

It’s that sort of self-sacrificing love that drives a mother to drag herself out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to feed a hungry newborn when she’d really rather sleep because she considers her baby’s need for food and comfort of higher precedence than her own need for rest.

The point is, contrary to what a lot of health and wealth preachers will tell you, the Christian life is a life of sacrifice and service. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many,” as we’re told in Mark 10:45. And Jesus expects us to follow that example.

He stated in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after Me [or if anyone would be My disciple], let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.” He reiterates this thought in Luke 14:27, where He says, “If you do not carry your cross and follow Me, you cannot be My disciple.”

Statements like that turn worldly philosophies completely on their heads. The Christian way of life is diametrically opposed to the popular mantras of loving yourself and following your heart and living your dreams. But you won’t know any of that if you don’t study and learn and memorize the Bible for yourself.

I got a wonderful message from a listener several weeks ago, which was so encouraging. This 27-year-old mother of three wrote…

I appreciate your recent podcast on Bible memory. You have successfully inspired me enough that I have memorized Ephesians 4:26 through 5:1 in the last week. I had no idea I could do that much that quickly in this season of raising [young children] while also being pregnant! Who knew that my brain was actually going to work that well?

The writer went on, but you get the gist of her excitement. She is thrilled because she invested the time and planted the seed, and she’s already reaping a harvest.

But that’s just the beginning. When we stick with it, studying scripture, committing it to memory, meditating on it continually, the fruit it produces in our lives will keep going and growing and multiplying and producing and reseeding until we can’t even believe the abundance that is produced.

I’ll link those Bible memory episodes in today’s show notes. I’m not sure if she was listening to an older episode I have on Bible memory tips or one of the newer ones I did called “Memorize Proverbs 3 with Me.” So I’ll include both in the show notes.

I thought about calling today’s episode “Memorize Philippians 2 with Me,” but the fact is I don’t have the whole chapter memorized — only the first half. The last part of that chapter is not nearly as meaty as the first 16 verses, in my opinion. The chapter ends with Paul’s promising to send Timothy to Philippi soon and letting them know that Epaphroditus appreciates their prayer and that he’s feeling much better, although he had been sick to death, and that Paul himself hopes to visit the Philippians soon, as well.

So when I started work last month on memorizing this chapter, I left off after verse 16.

Like my listener who was surprised by how quickly she was able to memorize so many verses in Ephesians, I was encouraged by how quickly I got these 16 verses down pat, too. That’s partly because they were already so familiar. I’d even memorized a big portion of this passage in my younger years.

But another thing that makes lengthy scriptures especially easy for me to memorize is setting them to music. So just like I did for Proverbs 3, I wrote a tune for Philippians 2:1-16 as well.

One of the benefits of memorizing this way, besides making it fast and easy, is that the tune will often come unbidden to my mind, and with it will come God’s Word, the verses that go along with that melody. At all hours of the day, and often in the night, as well, and even in my dreams, that tune and those verses will play and replay in my thoughts.

I think that’s probably also the same principle we see at play in Psalm 119.97, where the psalmist –I think David is traditionally believed to have been the author of this particular psalm, although some scholars say we can’t know for sure who wrote it — but as many of the psalms were set to music, or at least chanted, that may account for why the psalmist said, “Oh, how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always with me.”

The only way you can be certain to keep God’s word “always with you” is by hiding it deep in your heart. And when you do, especially when you use music to really lock it in there, then you will likely find yourself meditating on it all day long, even without making a concerted effort to do so.

Then you will be like the blessed man described in Psalm 1, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord. For in that law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

I have all of Psalm 1 memorized to music, also, thanks to some friends of ours, Fred and Sarah Cooper, with whom we used to attend Sunday school. They set this psalm and several other psalms and many other long passages of scripture to music and taught them all to our Sunday school class back at First Baptist Church of Dallas 30 years ago.

For a while — and you may still be able to find it — they had a book of music with all of the sheet music and the words to these full, verbatim passages of scripture for sale. I think it was called Sing the Word, so you can look and see if you can find Sing the Word by the Coopers if you’re interested.

But that was over 30 years ago, and I can still sing every single one of those songs that they taught us, as could many of my children.

So I’m just carrying on that same tradition, the one that the Coopers and King David and the other psalmist and Moses and Miriam and many, many other men and women of God have used for millennia to commit His word to memory in order to be able to take it with them continually and to observe His commandments.

So I think I’ll finish this episode by singing my latest scripture memory song to you, one that I composed myself to help with memorizing Philippians 2:1-16. And it goes like this:

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others.

Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

For this reason also, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toiled in vain."  Philippians 2 verses 1 through 16.

Thanks so much for listening today. If you have a question you’d like to hear covered on this podcast, message me on Instagram @flanders_family or contact me through my website, lovinglifeathome.com.

Before you go, if you’ve been encouraged by something you’ve heard on the show, do me a favor and forward the link to a friend or head over to Loving Life at Home on Apple iTunes to subscribe and leave a written review of the show. Your doing so will help others find me so they can listen too.
Until next time, I pray the Lord will bless your efforts to build a loving home life centered on Him.

More Bible Memory Help

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I’ve packed both volumes full of pretty, pertinent printables: copywork and coloring pages, award certificates, and tracking charts, along with links to videos and songs I’ve used both in memorizing Bible passages myself and in encouraging my kids and grandkids to do the same.