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

by John Mark Comer

What would it look like for you to make your ...

monastery

Eucharist,

nomenclature.

abiding is not a technique by which we control our relationship with God; but it is a skill.

there was no longer any difference between the quiet of morning prayer and the cacophony of dinner prep, between the sanctity of the altar and the mundanity of the evening meal.

habit is a tough sell.

But show me a person’s habits, and I will show you what they are truly most passionate about, most dedicated to, most willing to suffer for, and most in love with.

The human mind is far more moldable than most of us were led to believe.

Yet when I slow down, when my mind comes to rest, more and more I find my consciousness naturally going “home” to God.

There is so much we can’t do in our spiritual formation; we cannot fix or heal or transform ourselves. But we can do this: We can be with Jesus. We can pause for little moments throughout our days and turn our hearts toward Jesus in silent prayer and love.

apex

The most important thing that happens between God and the human soul is to love and to be loved.[32]

we become like what we gaze at—Jesus.

We let God love us into people of love.

sit in your sin and let God love you.”

“I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.”

So, the idea of slowing down, coming to quiet, dealing with the myriad of distractions within and without, and just letting God love you into a person of love, sounds like a waste of time.

Prayer (that is, being with Jesus) is our primary portal to joy. It’s the best part not just of each day but of life.

What if we’re the ones who have lost touch with reality? Who are wasting our lives on trivial things?

Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.[63]

Part of us deeply desires God, and part of us resists him and wants to rule over our own kingdoms, thank you very much.

a spiritual discipline that was designed to free us from ourselves and form us into people of self-giving love is twisted into “a little me time for Dad to recharge,” which often does nothing but deepen our bondage to self, not liberate it.

It’s less about “habit stacking”[67] than it is about learning to say no.

There is simply no way to follow Jesus without unhurrying your life.

We live time-torn lives: We want to be with Jesus, but we just don’t have time to pray. We genuinely desire to grow into people of love, but our to-do lists are too long to make any serious attempt.

Our souls were not created for the kind of speed to which we have grown accustomed.

When Jesus said, “Come, follow me,” he was simultaneously saying there are some things we all must leave behind.

To say yes to Jesus’ invitation to apprentice under him is to say no to countless other invitations.

“We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.”[4]

“Spiritual formation is the slowest of all human movements.”

The single most important question is, Are we becoming more loving?

And is all this feeling more and more natural and less forced? More and more like this is just who you are?

“Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” as Jesus said.[24] Put another way, there are no accidental saints.

I’m all for these three practices (all three are in my Rule of Life). But in my experience, many Christians get thirty years down the road with this as their template for discipleship and don’t feel all that different; they just feel older.

Haphazard,

The genius of Jesus’ ethical teaching was that you cannot keep the law by trying not to break the law.

You have to be transformed in your inner person, or what Jesus called “the heart.”

“You can’t think your way to Christlikeness.”[32]

This is why information alone does not produce transformation. Because knowing something is not the same as doing something, which is still not the same as becoming the kind of person who does something naturally as a by-product of a transformed inner nature.

Something is deeply off in the human heart.

“To err is human.”

disparage

“Hurt people hurt people,”

It’s about not only the confession of sin but also the confession of what is true—who you are, who Christ is, and who you truly are in Christ. It’s about coming out of hiding into acceptance, leaving behind all shame.

nothing can be changed until it is faced.”[44]

The human capacity for self-deception is staggering.

“The story you live in is the story you live out.”[45]

What we repeatedly do, we become.

we become like the people we spend time with.