"What would Jesus do?" some teenager responded when I asked him what the initials represented.

At the time, I thought it was cool (though not so cool that I was a sucker to fork over $5 for a 10 cent piece of circular plastic). The concept was gripping to me. I could just look down at my bracelet and ask that all-important question—and then do exactly what Jesus would do.

If only following Jesus were that simple.

The real challenge rests in determining what Jesus really would say and do. In actuality, we've got a slew of Old Testament prophecies about Jesus and then four short books in the New Testament with cameos in Acts and Revelation. That's not much to create a definitive answer for how Jesus would respond in every situation.

This fact becomes evident when you begin talking with people about Jesus. The concepts flow fast and furiously when you ask others to sum up the life of Jesus and the central message of His time on earth. A sudden murkiness appears about who Jesus was and is, as we thrust upon Him the things we believe Him to be—or maybe have even experienced Him to be in our own lives.

For the people who walked with the Messiah day in and day out, understanding Jesus wasn't so simple. In fact, they were downright mindboggling. He sometimes spoke in hard-to-understand parables. His teaching sometimes seemed confusing (the Kingdom of God is everything from near, here, to not yet). He healed people and told them not to tell anyone—and meant it. He "worked" on the Sabbath. He rebuked the Pharisees. He cleared the temple. There's no doubt that the religious leaders of Jesus' day would characterize the actions of the Messiah as "sacrilegious."

Jesus wasn't exactly easy to follow either. Nobody knew what He was going to do next. Would He blast the Pharisees or love the harlot? He was confusing at best. Yet in the twenty-first century, Christians have the audacity to delineate with ease what Jesus would or wouldn't do. But if Jesus were walking the earth today, would we have such a fond view of Him?

Labels of Love
In today's culture, we love to label everything. Right or wrong, labels make it easy for us to mentally catalog information, people, and ideas. Our adjective-happy society will stop at nothing to create a label for you, even if one doesn't exist. People try to do this with Jesus—and they fail miserably. There's only one category that He fits into neatly . . . and that is His own.

Let's take a look at a few ideas people have about attributes of Jesus we should emulate if we are to follow Him.

Peace-Loving, Hippy Jesus
Some people today think Jesus was just this really nice guy who performed amazing miracles for people and just talked about peace all the time. If only we could hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" to solve all of the world's conflicts.

To suggest that Jesus wasn't a peace-loving man is ridiculous for Isaiah called Him the "Prince of Peace." But Jesus recognized an important aspect of following Him—many people won't like you when you follow Him.

In Luke 12:49-53, Jesus suggested we need to prepare for conflict because it's coming. Jesus saw peace in our hearts that comes from knowing Him intimately. But peace that equates to a world without conflict? Not even the Messiah made such a promise for His time on the planet.

It's easy to shy away from conflict regarding your faith, particularly when people start blasting away at Christians. Who likes to be mocked for their faith anyway? So, it's understandably more comfortable to respond by tempering your responses and getting cozy with a watered-down version of the Christian faith. There are enough Christians out there creating conflict and making it difficult to portray a healthy image of Christ, so why become confrontational?

But Jesus welcomed confrontation. It was His opportunity to steer someone toward the heart of the Father. For all of Jesus' peaceful attributes, He was unafraid of confrontation. If your worldview leaned toward the Law, get ready for a blindside. If you wallowed in sin, you best shape up after you get a healthy heaping of grace. Think "Evangelism Linebacker" (a must-Google if you haven't see this video) without all the hitting.

Accepting? Yes. Confrontational? To the nth degree.

Culture War Jesus
Got a fish on the back of your car? Have a bumper sticker that antagonizes some other portion of the culture? Get angry and motivated when you hear someone on the radio talking about the culture war Christians are facing in America? This is a dominant attribute of Jesus many people view as worthy of following in our country today. Sadly, it only partially represents Jesus' approach to anti-Christian sentiments.

Jesus came to bring about change—but it was the kind of change that started in the hearts of men, not in the laws of the land. He understood that a society's values were reflected in their laws. Trying to change people through enforcing new laws was never going to work. Consequently, many people were disappointed with Jesus as the Messiah, even to the point that some flatly refused to believe. Many Jews held fast that the Messiah was there to set them free from tyrannical rule, not bring freedom to their hearts and minds from the devastating effects of sin.

The culture war pits "us" against "them," when in reality Jesus wanted "us" to serve "them." There He goes flipping that label on its head again!

What would Jesus do here? Would He start campaigns to have laws changed? Or would He invest in raising up authentic disciples who caught the essence of what He was trying to reach—and let them exponentially extend the gospel message?

The Love-God-Without-All-the-Distractions Jesus
The fact that Jesus frequently retreated for solitary prayer, whether to the mountains or across the Sea of Galilee, has led some to think isolation is the key to discipleship.

The notion that we can best love God by isolating ourselves from the world isn't a new idea. For centuries, men and women have chosen to isolate themselves and practice a pious life of serving God. For Christians in America, there are many who ascribe to this philosophy, although it may not manifest itself in four literal walls 20 miles outside of a city.

While there is nothing wrong with wanting to submerge ourselves with an environment that fosters healthy faith, what good is our faith if we aren't applying it to a world that desperately needs it?

When Jesus was questioned about spending time with notorious sinners, He said it is not the healthy who need a physician. After all, He came to call sinners, not the righteous, to repentance (Mark 2:17).

I find the easiest place to be a Christian is at church. Genuine or forced, smiles are on most people's faces. We can sincerely offer to pray for people when they share misfortune. We can sing songs about God's amazing love for us. We can get swept away by an awesome hour and a half with God as we learn more about Him. And then we have to leave.

It makes sense that we would want to sequester ourselves from the world. But that's not the way Jesus intended His followers to live. Nevertheless, it doesn't stop some Christians from making that their life pursuit.

Unshrinking Jesus
In his book Wholly Jesus, Mark Foreman sums up the reality of the attribute of Jesus we ascribe to:

"If we humble ourselves, we must admit honestly that we are drawn to the passages of Scripture that promote our particular expectation of Jesus. Even when we are in a convicting or challenging portion of Scripture, we emerge with a dismissal for the threat and a confirmation of our expectation. Our chosen preachers even help to keep our Jesus Jell-O mold strong.

"Sadly, we have ultimately shrunk the image of Jesus. Our personal wants and culturalworldviews have reduced and minimized Wholly Jesus and his wholeness message. Rarely, do we make him and his message bigger; instead, Jesus' message usually conveys just what we want it to."

When following Jesus, we must remember this important truth: Jesus was fully God and fully man. He can mingle with sinners and then judge the world. We're woefully deficient when we compare ourselves to Him—and we always will be until He completes the work He has begun in us. But that shouldn't dissuade us from pursuing His heart for our lives and for the world we live in.

We must also remember another truth: No matter what element of Jesus we're drawn to, the reality is Jesus is a little bit of all those labels—and many more. He wasn't one thing all the time, except the perfect Son of God who was fully human and fully man operating under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit.

Asking ourselves "What would Jesus do?" is a great starting point, but it falls incredibly short in conjuring up the proper question. It's more about asking, "What is the Holy Spirit leading us to do in accordance with Scripture?"

Maybe God is stirring your heart to confront someone who is older than you about their sinful behavior. Or maybe God is prodding you to befriend your neighbor, the outspoken atheist. Maybe God is calling you to spend more time in prayer and contemplation. Or maybe God is urging you to serve the poor.

Some of these promptings may stand in stark contrast to what we are normally drawn to—and it may be a tad uncomfortable at first. But then again, that's the point. We sing about a great big God on Sundays, but then act as if He is powerless the rest of the week. If we're to unshrink Jesus, it's going to take some uncomfortable moments, moments where we must choose to shake off our preconceived ideas about what it means to follow Jesus and simply obey Him.

Instead of delivering a tidy mission statement about what it means to follow Jesus, we'll develop a new label for our relationship with Him: "Words Cannot Express."

Jason Chatraw is a writer and teacher, passionate about communicating the truths of Christ. After working as a full-time sports writer for nine years, Jason began writing and working for Christian ministries. In 2004, he started a publishing company, Ampelon Publishing, and has also written three books, including his latest with Eric Sandras entitled Mystics, Mavericks & Miracle Workers: A 30-day journey with some saints. Jason and his wife, Janel, live in Boise, Idaho, with their daughters, Faith and Julia.

Deal Gone Bad

Aside from Tim's rather nondescript California ministry job, he put his business degree to work on the side, buying houses, fixing them up and reselling them for a handsome profit. In fact, he felt like business was the direction God had for his life until he heard the call to go into the ministry seven years prior. Yet it was a business deal gone bad that sparked the most life-changing week in Tim's life.

In the midst of wheeling and dealing, a friend recommended Tim buy an investment property in downtown Oklahoma City, site unseen. He convinced Tim that there was a substantial profit to be made from flipping this apartment complex. That was when the trouble began.

The owners of the apartment units and the property manager managed to present the apartment as a thriving area, one that showed great promise. But looks were more than deceiving. In reality, the apartment complex was home to some of the most down-and-out people in the city, not to mention a base for drug lords and every other imaginable kind of evil enterprise.

It wasn't long before Tim realized he was caught up in the middle of a con game and stuck with a building that was losing him anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month for a period of time.

"I was just dying inside," Tim tells The Brink. "All I could say is 'Jesus', and I could say that a hundred times a minute. I was crying myself to sleep at night. But I remember the week before I finally went to Oklahoma City to try and sell the building and get rid of it once and for all that I got on my face before God.  I said, 'I'll do whatever You want, however You want, whenever You want. I'm surrendered. Whatever that means.' Then the first thing He called me to do was give $500 to somebody—and I had lost significant amounts of money. But I did it, yet I was like, 'Are you sure Lord?' Then the same day that same lady I sent money to ended up sending us $400. I was wondering if I had missed His voice. Then the Lord started to show me what obedience looked like. That's when the Lord really started messing my life up. "

Acts Come Alive

Tim's plan to rid himself of this burdensome building was to fly to Oklahoma City, fix up the building and sell it. At this point, he was beyond caring about making a profit—he was more concerned with plugging the gaping cash leak. So Tim began fasting prior to his trip.

"I was trying to pull a wild card with my fasting, like, 'Lord, help me. Take this problem off my hands. Send a tornado through this building or burn it down with fire. Just take it away from me'," Tim said. "I thought I was off and I had totally messed up God's will for my life.

Still unaware of the real activity taking place within his building, Tim was horrified to discover the truth once he arrived. "Drugs, gangs, prostitution—it was a buffet table of evil," Tim said. "If evil could walk through the streets, it was walking down the ones near this building and getting whatever it wanted. Yet in spite of my fear, God began giving me an insane amount of boldness once we arrived."

What Tim thought was going to be a week of redeeming a rundown building turned into a different kind of redemptive mission—one that involved broken people who were in desperate need of God's love, grace and truth.

Two days into his extreme makeover project, Tim was perched on a ladder inside the building, painting when a 6-foot-4, 250-pound man walked near him. Trying to be polite, Tim asked him how he was doing.

"He just looked up at me and said, 'I'm tired,'" Tim recalls. "And as cheesy as it sounds, I just said, 'I know the one who brings rest.' Then within a few minutes, he starts weeping and repenting. Then the Lord showed me some things about this guy's life that I shared with him, and he was like, 'What is going on? I heard about you.'

"There was just this release and repentance. These were small indicators that God was up to something."

One afternoon, Tim and his friend ventured into a dark room near the roof's building and watched about 30 gang members bolt out the back door when they walked in. "We joked about how darkness would flee when exposed to the light," Tim said. "But it really was a visual picture of what was happening. God was at work in a big way."

Then God began to speak to Tim in a way that forever reshaped his journey.

"When I woke up one night after reading Zechariah 7, God asked me, 'Are you fasting for me or for you?' I was hoping that fasting was the wild card of God to deliver me, so it was clear I was fasting for me and not for Him," Tim said. "He began to show me that it wasn't about me—it was about him. He said he would rather have me obey than sacrifice. At that point, when I heard Him say, 'Obedience,' I knew I was supposed to move out here and become a part of this. "

By week's end, Tim knew that this wasn't a one-week fixer-upper in Oklahoma City, but the beginning of a much longer process of redeeming a building and neighborhood for Christ. "That week I had a hundred divine appointments and watched the word of God become more real than I had ever seen in my life. I think God still wants the book of Acts to be written today."

Radical Obedience

When Tim returned home, he walked into his church office and resigned, not knowing the full plan but knowing it involved him doing ministry out of this building, what eventually became known as The Refuge.

"Many people thought I was crazy," Tim says with a pause, before adding, "I thought I was crazy! And even a month after I moved out here, I asked my wife if she thought I was crazy. I didn't have the full vision for what I was to be doing, but I knew the Lord was teaching me to trust Him. The vision would come later. I wanted vision because I wanted to know where I was headed."

Despite shutting down the criminal activity inside the building, Tim was still wondering just what his purpose was after six months.

"Nothing was really happening, and I was scared all the time," Tim said. "Whenever I would get within a couple of miles of the building, this heavy oppression would come over me. I would be scraping these nasty crack-infested floors and look out at like the city and tell the Lord that I was in the wrong building. I was supposed to be in one of those skyscrapers doing business. It didn't make one bit of sense."

But things quickly began to change. Tim befriended two generals—Homicide and Tango—from a local gang and began meeting and praying with them regularly. "These guys started going throughout the building and asking if they could repent for their sins in each of the rooms where they sinned," Tim said.

One day later, a church shows up and says they heard about what I was doing and wanted to help fix up the building. Before too long, Tim was partnering with other local ministries and throwing a block party. Then more churches began hearing about what happening The Refuge and wanted to help.

Now, The Refuge is a growing ministry that is trying to model the love of Christ to a group of people who are downtrodden and often marginalized by society.

"A lot of what we're doing on a daily basis is trying to be an example of selfless people serving the selfish," Tim said. "The selfishness that they're in is their idol is themselves. They are the temples lying in waste. The reason why is they are full of idols—they're full of themselves. They're living in their image, rather than the image of God. What we're trying to do as believers to do is be the light and expose darkness just as Christ came to serve.

"We're trying to pursue what it looks like to love God and love our neighbors. Our neighbors are crack dealers, business owners, prostitutes, gang members. And we've decided to focus on giving them spiritual food. We're trying to transform that area by picking up trash, mowing lawns without people knowing it. It's Isaiah 58. We're modeling to the homeless people what it means to be creative producers and workers who use their hands to be fruitful and multiply. We think that's the ticket to transforming and engaging them rather than enabling them.

"We think if we go and make disciples, we'll advance the kingdom of God. It starts on our street. And when we get our street, we're going after our neighborhood. When we get our neighborhood, we'll go after our city and then our state."

Not a bad start for a guy who just thought he was going to fix up a building.

Jason Chatraw is a freelance writer from Boise, Idaho.