What Happened to WWJD? (Poem)

A fleeting cultural fad?

A plan to unite kids in a group?

A clever marketing ad?

Much money from merchandize to scoop?

Or a meaningful way to prompt folks

To stop and think for a moment before they act,

And from their lives, better actions coax?

Another religious movement by devils hacked?

What ever happened to the WWJD movement

That fired-up so many folks in the ‘90s? ¹

Why do passions that were then stirred now seem so dormant?

About what happened, there are many theories!

The answer to this question, pivotal,

Cannot be found examining matters carnally,

It’s best found in the realm, spiritual,

Understanding Christ’s ministry strategically. 

Re-establishing The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth,

Has been and remains His core mission, passionate,

Restoring to every strata of life, glorious worth, 

Man, animals, plants and nature inanimate.

But though His end-game targets such things that are physical,

His means to accomplish His ends are on a higher plane. 

Thus He recruits us for war that is spiritual,

A war for which Christian recruits must diligently train. ²

The first tenet of war is …know your enemy. 

A principle of war is …prevent friendly fire.

Failure to follow these basic points, astutely, 

Will turn any battleground into a quagmire! 

The core answer to the question WWJD poses,

Is found in how Jesus daily lived life, unseen. 

Not in His many life vignettes The Bible discloses.

The core answer is clearly found in John 5:19.

 

Paul affirms the weapons of our warfare are mighty,

And He details God’s whole armor with which we should be clad.

But re. what to do once we’re clad, some do minimally --

Praying, loosening good things, binding things that make God sad. ³

This keeps our focus on spiritual entities, 

And helps us see people as worthy of loving Grace.

Otherwise, we’ll quickly see them as our enemies,

And become ill-equipped our real enemies to face! 

So if in prayer we are feeble, lacking rigor,

If it’s not based on skillful use of The Word of God, ‘our sword’, 

Then in battle, we won’t be The Lord’s soldiers, but just actors.

When we don’t see desired results,

we’ll lose passions that once soared. ⁴

When in feeble prayer, we are unable to move The Lord’s hand,

Devils then tempt us: Try something different; take a U-turn!

Might that be why folks took off WWJD t-shirts and wrist bands,

And why much of Church Americana took …a hard, right turn?? ⁵

---------- 

¹ ‘What Would Jesus Do?’. This question morphed from a book written in 1896, to a massive movement a century later across the US in the 1990, largely among white evangelicals. It then quickly fizzed out after much money was made on movement merchandize. See: What Would Jesus Do? The Rise of a Slogan and also The W.W.J.D. Fade-out 

² In a pre-death parable (Luke 19:11-27), Jesus signaled to all Christ-followers a commission to invade and occupy Earth’s spiritual realm in His (then pending) victory, until He returns to establish His earthly kingdom. This is the realm devils occupy, and of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 3:10 and 6:12. But without a clear perception of this meaning, spiritually, we are easily tempted to change our focus to things carnal, physical (including on other people), political and other means to achieve our own desired results. When that happens, we become lukewarm believers, and eventually useless in Heaven’s strategic plans. Ponder The Lord’s promised response: Laodicean Lackadaisicalness (Series)

³ Keeping our focus not on people, but on good and evil spirits who motivate people. See: Ephesians 6:8, Matthew 16:19 and 18:18. These are core aspects of spiritual warfare to which Christ-followers are called, though many may not be aware of, or prepared to engage in, earnestly and rigorously. See: Working With Angels (Series)

⁴ ‘Christians-lite’, i.e., inauthentic, fake believers. Apostle Paul, by The Holy Spirit, predicted a great falling away from the faith towards the end of this 3rd age of history, formerly committed Christians leaving the faith, becoming spiritually saltless, and having a form of Godliness, but not denying/ not displaying any of His power. In many respects, THIS is Church Americana today. 

⁵ A hard-right political stance, seemingly/reportedly abandoning both traditionally-held ‘conservative values’ and some Christian virtues. See: When Church Hurts (Poem)