A number of years ago there was a fad of church-goers wearing bracelets with “WWJD” (what would Jesus do) on them, as a reminder that we should consider what Jesus would do in all circumstances. As with most such movements, this faded quickly. Following Jesus is harder than wearing a bracelet, but the underlying truth holds: if we claim Christ, we’re supposed to walk as he walked.

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:4-6 ESV

We know that we’re not going to achieve perfect Christ-likeness in this life. God knows that, too. If that were possible, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come into the world and die in the first place. But we’re told to try. We should be growing closer to Jesus and more like him.

The big question is “what does that mean?” What is Jesus actually like, and what are we supposed to be becoming?

I’m not going to fully answer that in this little blog post. It’s a subject that could fill a library. At the same time, there are some fundamental truths about who Jesus was that we can set forth pretty easily. Today, I’ll discuss three of them.

Jesus loves people. All people. 

He demonstrated this repeatedly while on earth. Jesus started the conversation with the Samaritan woman. Not only was she of an enemy people group, but she was also not a “good” woman, not the kind of person that a religious teacher ought to be associating with. We know he knew that. He tells her about her sinful choices, but he also offers her hope. Jesus touched lepers and healed them. They were required to call out warnings so that people would know to stay away, but he reached out to them. He helped Romans, tax-collectors, foreigners, and obvious sinners.

Since Jesus loves everyone, we need to work on loving everyone.

Jesus hates religious hypocrisy and loves truth.

He regularly calls out the hypocritical behavior of the religious elite. The Good Samaritan story is not just about who our neighbor is: it’s also about the fact that the Jewish priest and the Levite did not behave in a loving and godly way. They were not acting as neighbors to the injured man. 

The story of Jesus overturning tables and kicking the merchants out of the temple seems to have happened twice, once early in his ministry and once during his final trip to Jerusalem on his way to the cross. This is partly about treating God with respect, but it’s also about the hypocrisy and greed of the religious elite, as they would require people to exchange their money for the “right” currency (at a cost) and would work to find small flaws with their animals and force people to buy “better” ones to sacrifice.

Jesus condemns the loud prayer of self-justification and self-glorification and praises the private prayer that freely acknowledges one’s faults. He condemned religious leaders for being cups that were clean on the outside but filthy on the inside. We repeatedly see him pointing out the failures of religious leaders while offering hope to those who acknowledged their failures and sins.

If we want to follow and be like Jesus, we must not tolerate hypocrisy in ourselves or our leaders. We must acknowledge our wrongdoing and seek to do better.

Jesus is more concerned with inner substance than outward appearance.

Jesus agreed with the ten commandments that we should not murder or commit adultery. However, he also pointed out that we should not indulge in the hatred and lust that lead to those actions, equating the inward sin with the outward action. He encouraged his followers to give in secret for God’s praise rather than man’s.

Jesus was not focused on laying down a bunch of rules for people to follow. He broke rules because he was more concerned about people and doing what was right. He healed people on the Sabbath and declared that he was correct to do so. He declared that physical cleanliness was less important than inward cleanliness. The religious hypocrisy Christ hates (the dirty cup) is all about ignoring inner substance to focus on outer appearance.

Jesus did not advocate breaking laws laid down by God, saying that he had come to fulfill the law not abolish it (cf. Matthew 5:17), but he strongly disapproved of mindless rule-following that did not consider people. He was concerned with the heart of the law and the hearts of people. In the Good Samaritan story mentioned above, the priest and the Levite can justify their unneighborly behavior with legalism. After all, if they tried to help, they might end up touching a dead body and making themselves ritually unclean, but Jesus clearly doesn’t approve of focusing on the ritual instead of the person.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 22:35-40 ESV

To me, it seems that this notion that what matters as a follower of Jesus is not following a set of rules is a hard thing for the church and many Christians. As much as we humans do rebel against rules, we often want our religion to be a nice, orderly list of rules to follow. God, however, doesn’t work that way. He has called those of us who choose to follow Jesus to get to know him, through the Bible, through prayer, and through time with other believers, and to seek to become like him as we more clearly understand who he is. The heart of the Christian walk is to learn to love God and people.

Following Jesus is not easy; it’s just necessary.

Loving God and people is a big, complicated thing, because God is love and justice and righteousness and beyond our ability to understand. That’s part of why Jesus came to earth: to be an example. To know what he would do, we need to understand what he did. We’re not going to get it right all the time, but, if we choose Christ, the only successful path is to love God and people: to get to know God and people, to acknowledge our failures, and to get up tomorrow looking to do better and love more.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11 ESV

Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash