I was blessed to grow up with a wonderful loving father. I learned many traits that have carried me through life just because I listened to, and watched, him. Among these were honesty, a good work ethic, compassion, humility and faithfulness to God. One way that I can honor my father is to follow in his footsteps, striving to be like him. Not only did Jesus strive to be like His father, God, He was God. The Jewish religious leaders did not understand what Jesus was saying and thought it was blasphemy that He claimed to be God.
So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. John 5:19-20 NLT
“The Father and I are one.” John 10:30 NLT
I understand it could be hard for people to believe another human saying his father is the almighty, all-powerful God. However, God and Jesus are not only father and son, they are the same being. And, because of His unity with his father, Jesus lived as God wanted him to live. When reading this passage, I think about children imitating their parents. Earlier today, I was watching a video of a friend playing his guitar and singing hymns. His young son sat beside him also playing a guitar and singing. This boy wanted to be just like his dad.
Because of our relationship with Jesus, we must honor Him and live as He wants us to live. Do you remember when people wore bracelets with WWJD printed on them? That stood for “What Would Jesus Do?”. If we think about this as we’re about to make a decision, we might approach things differently. Are we really like Jesus and do we honor Him through our actions?
In today’s scripture, Jesus is telling the Jewish leaders that whatever God does, He will also do. Not only that, God will show Him how to do even greater things than healing people. We see this when Jesus gave His life to save us from our sins and then conquered death 3 days later when He rose from the dead. All of this was done so that we can have eternal life! Can we live as the Father wants us to live and honor Jesus through our actions?
I think about things in my life from the perspective of “what would my father do?” More importantly, however, I think “what would Jesus do?”
