WWJD.1

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” Proverbs 24:11 (NIV)

In the last post, I briefly touched on the point of how the Word of God is relevant in all areas of our lives and that when we are faced with temptations of any kind at work, school, home, etc, we should firmly stand on the Word in order to overcome. I concluded by claiming that we should ask ourselves the question WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) to all areas of our lives as we live with a Christian Worldview.

 WWJD.1- How did we get here?

We have come a long way since the times of the early church yet the message of the Gospel has not changed in the slightest, the power of the Gospel has not diminished and the relevancy of it in our lives has not expired. The problem, as I see it, is the same mistake that Eve fell into when she “saw that the fruit of the tree was …desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen 3:6). The problem was that her desire and love for God was turned away from Him and to self. As John Hammett said, “a subject of perpetual interest to humans [is] themselves”. 

Self-glorification has been the most deceptive lie of the enemy and it has trapped us all at one point in our lives. It has been said that to develop or break a habit, all you need to do is repeat the new/desired behavior for 21 days. But what if you have been reinforcing a behavior and continuing a habit your entire life? What then? 

I believe all people have been developing a behavior that ultimately leads back to self. One that involves us hearing the voice of God, and feeling the conviction that comes when we do something wrong and ignoring it. The more we choose to ignore the conviction, the easier it gets for us to forget that we ever felt it was wrong. It is this habit of hearing God and ignoring His voice that I find to be the most destructive in the life of a believer. It is this habit that keeps a believer from refraining from drunkenness (Eph 5:18), from removing curse words from their language (Eph 4:29), from fleeing from sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:18), and from denying their flesh (Luke 9:23)…just to name a few.

From the very beginning, humankind was created in the image of God. We were created in the image of perfection. But through the fall, the image has become distorted. Many Christians understand full well that upon receiving salvation they are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and that we are “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20) but they seem to forget that earlier in the same chapter we are exhorted to “make it our goal to please Him” (2 Cor 5:9). We read, and rejoice, that we “put on the new man created according to God” (Rom 4:24), but too often forget that Paul wrote 2 verses earlier that we are to “put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt” (Rom 4:22).

I see the problem as two-fold. 1) We have fallen into the lie of seeking our own gratification and 2) we do not know what the Word of God says. In order to properly answer the question WWJD, we must first understand that there is a problem and we have gotten to where we are now because we have turned away from God and towards ourselves.

WOD:
3 rounds for time of:
30 Deadlifts (165#)
20 Squat Cleans (165#)
10 OH Squats (165#)

Rest 2 minutes between rounds