Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.

by John Mark Comer

What exactly are we saved to?

tantamount

nuance.

“minimum entrance requirements.”[40]

There is no guarantee that you can be a Christian but not an apprentice of Jesus and still “go to heaven when you die.” Jesus warned us, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”[41]

What if the mark is union with God?

What if it’s the healing of your soul through participation in the inner life of the Trinity?

For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you.

It’s not just about what he has done for us but also about what he has done, is doing, and will do in us if we apprentice under him.

pervaded

One way to judge the veracity of your gospel is by this simple acid test: Would someone hearing your gospel naturally conclude that apprenticeship to Jesus is the only fitting response?

dichotomy,

It’s always been grace, pure grace.

conflate

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice [note his word choice: practice] is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.[47]

soteriological

The original name for the community of Jesus’ apprentices was “the Way” or “followers of the Way.”

It’s exactly what it sounds like—a way of life.

One way to paraphrase Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” is to say, “Adopt my overall way of life to experience the life I have on offer.”

I am the way and the truth and the life.[50]

People misread this as a statement about who’s in or out and who’s going to hell and who’s en route to heaven, but that’s not likely what Jesus meant. It’s far more likely he was saying that the marriage of his truth (his teaching) and his way (his lifestyle) is how to get to the with-God life he offers.

There is a way of life—modeled personally by Jesus himself—that is far beyond anything else on offer in this world.

crass:

Because this staggering offer of life is available to all.

Rabbi

bigot

Whoever means whoever.

Simon and Andrew were fishermen. Think about that for a second: This means they didn’t make it into an apprenticeship program. They weren’t the best of the best of the best; they were the ones who got sent home to “make babies and pray they become rabbis.”

Before they believed in Jesus, he believed in them.

Starting right where you are, you can follow him into a life in the kingdom that fulfills your deepest desires.

It’s possible—all of it. But it’s not inevitable. It won’t just happen by chance.

Jesuit

Just being with him did something to me.

In Mark 3, Jesus “called” his disciples, and “they came to him.” This would have been a group of dozens or even hundreds of followers who spent long swaths of time with Jesus. From this larger pool of disciples, Jesus chose twelve for special training so that “they might be with him.”[3]

To cultivate a with-ness to Jesus as the baseline of your entire life.

It is not a program but a progression.

Tel Aviv,

So, how do we be with him?

exegesis:

So, the Father will give us another one of Jesus? To be with us? To help us and intercede for us?

Abide in me, and I in you.[9]

“Make your home in me, as I make my home in you.”

Make your home in my presence by the Spirit, and never leave.

It’s, What are you abiding in? All of us have a source we are rooted in,

And this matters, because whatever we “abide” in will determine the “fruit” of our lives, for good or for ill.

If we are rooted in the infinite scroll of social media, it will form us, likely into people who are angry, anxious, arrogant, simplistic, and distracted.[11]

hedonism—another

But if we are rooted in the inner life of God…that will also form us. It will slowly grow the “fruit of the Spirit” in our life: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”[12]

Where is your emotional home?

What do you return to in your qu...