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March 5 - March 12, 2025
But in reality, formation into the image of Jesus is Hard Slow And we are not in control
Something approaching Christlikeness is possible in this life.
If you are an apprentice of Jesus, your end goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did.
Unfortunately, most Western Christians read the stories about Jesus, especially the miracle stories, not as a template for how to live but as “proof that Jesus was God.”
In Jesus’ incarnation we also see what a real, true human being is like. We see what God had in mind from the beginning—what human beings have the potential to become if reunited with God.
So, when you read the miracle stories, don’t just think, Oh, well, Jesus was God. Yes, he was. But also think, Wow, this is what a real, true human being, walking in the power of the Spirit, is capable of.
Henri Nouwen once said Jesus’ life moved along a continuum from solitude to community to ministry.[15]
Making space for the gospel Preaching the gospel Demonstrating the gospel
How do we make space for God in such an emotionally loaded atmosphere? The same way he did: by eating and drinking.
One theologian wrote, “Jesus got himself crucified by the way he ate.”[20]
Lukan scholar Robert Karris wrote, “In Luke’s Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.”[22] I like this Jesus. I think I will apprentice under him in all things…
And “when we act like God, we get to feel like God,”[30] to share his joy.
The beauty of Jesus’ method is this: It is something you’re already doing. You already eat meals. All you have to do is repurpose a few of them to offer God’s great welcome. Anyone can do this. You don’t need a seminary degree or expertise in apologetics; you don’t need a formal dining room or a Kinfolk-worthy backyard with cool hanging lights. You just need a table. And it doesn’t even have to be yours.
In our generation, the primary problem with evangelism isn’t that we’re doing it with bullhorns and low-grade bigotry; it’s that we’re not doing it at all.
The gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to all. Through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit, Jesus has saved, is saving, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus, we can enter into this kingdom and into the inner life of God himself. We can receive and give and share in Love Loving. We can be a part of a community that Jesus is, ever so slowly, forming into a radiant new society of peace and justice that one day will co-govern all creation with the
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many of us have lost our sense of witness entirely. But it is core to our faith and essential to our discipleship that we reach out to others with this good news of Jesus.
We often start with the assumption that because someone isn’t a disciple of Jesus, God isn’t at work in their life. But what if we started with the opposite assumption? That God is all-present and full of love and drawn to sinners? That he is likely already at work in their life, gently inviting them in?
Do not underestimate the raw power of simply practicing the Way of Jesus in community.
But preaching the gospel? I think I’ll just mow my neighbor’s lawn and hope they figure out Jesus rose from the dead.
But if we curb this impulse of the Spirit deep within our spirits—to go, to preach the gospel, to testify—then we will “quench the Spirit”[47] in ways that will sabotage our formation and suppress our spiritual vitality.
His eating meals with “sinners” wasn’t a picture of salvation—it was salvation.
Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly “natural” thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.[50]
and that, in a similar, though less potent way,
He offered a word; I interpreted it as a word from God.
We will find our hearts drawn to particular justice issues, people groups, neighbor families, or lines of work. And it will feel like joy.
Kelly also said, “By inner persuasions He draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing His burdens in us.”[68] This makes me think of the apostle Paul’s line about how “the Lord has assigned to each his task.”[69]
A Rule of Life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did, as we live in alignment with our deepest desires. It’s a way of intentionally organizing our lives around what matters most: God.
quote a line from the pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who, in a letter from prison, said to a young couple on their wedding day, “Today, you are young and very much in love and you think that your love can sustain your marriage. It can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.”[7]
Because your life is the by-product of your lifestyle.
and how at some point you have to grapple with the fact that your free choices aren’t delivering the life you want. Your freedom is what got you here, not your constraint.[9]
Pay attention when you see a feature of another person’s life and think, I wish my life was like that. Then craft a Rule to move in that direction.
But a Rule is very different: It’s self-generated from your internal desires, it has a ton of flexibility, it’s relationship based (not morality based), and it’s designed to index you toward your vision of the good life.
But. Love is the metric of spiritual maturity, not discipline. Discipline is a means to an end—to be with Jesus, become like him, and do what he did.
Sabbath, sleep (yes, sleep is a practice of Jesus), feasting, gratitude, celebration, worship, etc. And many others, like solitude or fasting or serving, become joyful as we practice them over time.
spiritual disciplines are simply a means of appropriating or growing toward the life that God graciously offers.”[29]
A discipline is any activity I can do by direct effort that will eventually enable me to do what I currently cannot do by direct effort.
Anything can become a spiritual discipline if we offer it to God as a channel of grace.
you can offer any of these activities to God in hope that he will fill those spaces with his transforming presence.
Most of the great ones of the Way all agree: Solitude is the most foundational of all the practices of Jesus.
As Ronald Rolheiser put it, There is no bad way to pray and there is no one starting point for prayer. All the great spiritual masters offer only one non-negotiable rule: You have to show up for prayer and you have to show up regularly.[43]
Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and, arguably, the single most neglected in the modern Western church.
In fasting, you are literally praying with your body, offering all that you are to God in worship.
You are learning to be joyful, even when you don’t get what you want. You are practicing suffering and, through it, increasing your capacity for joy in all circumstances.
On fasting
What do you have to give? Put another way: How badly do you want joy?
our role isn’t to “convert” anyone, but it is to preach—to
You must name your limits—emotionally, relationally, even spiritually—and from there determine what you honestly can do, and then, let that be enough.
Step one: We must find God in the contours of our actual lives—not the lives we wish we had, used to have, or plan to have, but the lives we actually have, here, now.
Dare to ask yourself, How do I enjoy God?
There’s so much space to be who you are before God.
Every childlike interruption to your Rule can function as an invitation to surrender control and become a person of self-giving love.
