One quote caught my attention. It is on page 33: “…when we have not clearly defined what character is, we have a tendency to fill the void with the hollow imitations offered by the popular culture.”
It’s not just popular culture that is ready to hand out hollow imitations. The Christian world does, too. These are the more dangerous ones. For example, a lot of Christians were trying to live their lives according to WWJD. I understand the earnestness of these people and the seriousness of the question. The bracelets were nice and probably made a lot of money for some Chinese factory. But I think it missed the whole point. This philosophy would have us face a situation, stop, and then try to figure out what Jesus would do. It becomes that cartoon of the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Then we make up our mind and do what we think is right. The problem is that I don’t think Jesus ever did that. He wasn’t wearing a WWID bracelet, wondering, when the devil tempted Him, “Hmmm. What would I do?” No, what Jesus did in any moment was what He always did. He lived His life in constant awareness of the Holy Spirit’s direction. That way, He knew He was in the will of God. He took in Scripture, prayed about it, and the Holy Spirit brought it to Him. One of the problems with WWJD is that it isolates the circumstance from the rest of the Christian life. Then we get concerned that we do the right thing in this instance. That becomes law and we aren’t under law. The danger there is that we become overly concerned with the details of life—What school should I go to? What should I do with this money? How much should I give?--instead of maintaining that connection with God. I believe this is what Jesus modeled for us: proper fellowship with God and others. I don’t believe He was necessarily an example for situational living. When I read Scripture, I don’t always see Him in the situations I face. Do you? True, “He was tempted in all ways, just as we are, but never sinned.” But no one has ever asked me to supply drinks for a wedding. Nor did I ever read that Jesus was tempted to look at porn on the internet. He was tempted to find fulfillment outside of a relationship with God. I think that verse speaks to the generalities of temptation. It forces us to see how Jesus lived His life on the whole. And that leads to what we hear nearly every week (because we need to): Our faith is a relationship, not a religion. Jesus maintained and sustained that relationship daily. If this relationship grows, our character grows.
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