What Would Jesus Do Today? by Mike Cope & Rubel Shelly

Author:Mike Cope & Rubel Shelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Publishing

HOW JESUS LIVED

Did Jesus’ life match his words? How did he respond when faced with injustice? There could be no better model to follow because no one has ever been treated more unfairly, and no one has ever responded with a more forgiving spirit.

One time, for example, Jesus ran up against the accumulated racial tension of many years. The people of a Samaritan village, knowing he was on his way to Jerusalem, refused to welcome him. 10 James and John didn’t take the insult well. “Lord,” they seethed with steam rising from their foreheads, “do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”

Jesus surely disarmed them by directing his rebuke to them rather than to the villagers. Retaliation just wasn’t his style.

The clearest example of his forgiving spirit, of course, was the cross. “The cross is the only power in the world,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “which, proves that suffering love can avenge and vanquish evil.”

The charges hurled against Jesus were trumped up and false. He was accused of evil while he came only for good. The prophet Isaiah had anticipated the injustice of his punishment centuries before:

Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed. 11

In the face of sheer hatred, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” 12 The apostle Peter would later call on Christians to refrain from retaliation because of their model, Jesus Christ:

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 13

It was a lesson Peter had learned personally. After disowning Jesus three times, what hope could he possibly have had that Jesus would forgive him and use him again to bring people to God? But even before his denial, Jesus, fully aware of what would happen, extended mercy: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” 14

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