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

by John Mark Comer

There are all sorts of ways to read Scripture—slowly and prayerfully, all alone (a practice called “Lectio Divina”),

“We generally sin alone, but we heal together.”[48]

This is one of the most joyful of all the practices.

We serve.

You think you’re there to help others, but you quickly realize you’re the one being helped.

You’re being set free of your ego, your entitlement, your self-obsession. When you serve in the Way of Jesus, the lines blur between servant and served, giver and recipient. Both give, and both receive. Dignity is restored in one; freedom won in the other.

Unrealistic goals just leave us discouraged and disillusioned.

Take out more than you put in.

There’s so much space to be who you are before God.

monastic

We need one another to help us stay on the path and, when we fall, to help us back up.

Change is all about consistency over time.

We simply can’t add Jesus to the top of our already overbusy, consumeristic, emotionally unhealthy, hyper-individualistic, digitally distracted, media-saturated, undisciplined modern “life.”

We must come to realize that following Jesus is the main point of life.

Following Jesus is not convenient, quick, or easy. (Nothing meaningful in life is.)

“Practicing the way of Jesus will always be a minority activity.”[1]

You have an invitation before you to become an apprentice of Jesus.

One of my favorite definitions of discipleship is “a lifelong process of deepening surrender to Jesus.”[9]

An apprentice of Jesus has no other will than the will of God. Your flesh may war against you, and the habits of sin in your “body of death”[12] may sabotage your best intentions. Your “heart may fail”[13] under the emotional weight of life, but your will is not in question; your will is devoted to Jesus.

We must count the cost not only of following Jesus, but also of not following Jesus.

Not following Jesus will cost you even more. It will cost you life with God, the very purpose for which you were created. It will cost you access to the inner life of the Trinity, the “peace…which transcends all understanding,” and the “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”[17] It will cost you freedom from the bondage of sin, healing from the wounding of sin, forgiveness from the guilt and shame of sin, and adoption into the family of God out of the isolation of sin.

Life is hard, with or without God. But what’s really hard—nearly unbearable for some—is facing the pain and suffering of life apart from God.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.[18]

This, of course, is what pretty much everybody does—they spend their time, money, and best energies (their “lives”) trying to save, protect, guard, enrich, and control their lives in an attempt to be happy and at peace. And what happens? They are rarely happy or at peace.

The only true tragedy is to live and not die to self—to

When we stumble, what then? We begin again.

Once your heart is consumed by a vision of Jesus, you must begin, right where you are. Take one small step, immediately.