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

by John Mark Comer

The key to getting people to follow you is to convince them they aren’t following anyone at all.

My thesis is simple: Transformation is possible if we are willing to arrange our lives around the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did, which will open our lives to God’s power to change. Said another way, we can be transformed if we are willing to apprentice ourselves to Jesus.

Authority worked differently. Your life and teaching were your credentials.

Apprenticeship to Jesus—that is, following Jesus—is a whole-life process of being with Jesus for the purpose of becoming like him and carrying on his work in the world. It’s a lifelong journey in which we gradually learn to say and do the kinds of things Jesus said and did as we apprentice under him in every facet of our lives.

Here’s why: If disciple is something that is done to you (a verb),[25] then that puts the onus of responsibility for your spiritual formation on someone else, like your pastor, church, or mentor. But if disciple is a noun—if it’s someone you are or are not—then no one can “disciple” you but Rabbi Jesus himself.

Much preaching of the gospel today does not call people to a life of discipleship. Following Jesus is seen as optional—a post-conversion “second track” for those who want to go further. Tragically, this has created a two-tier church, where a large swath of people who believe in God and even regularly attend church have not re-architected their daily lives on the foundation of apprenticeship to Jesus.

in the literary design of the Gospels, you have two recurring groups: the apprentices and the crowds.[34] The apprentices included all Jesus’ followers—the twelve apostles, but also many others, including women. The crowds were simply everyone else.

You see, Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity; he’s looking for apprentices in the kingdom of God.

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

It’s not just about him becoming like us but also about us becoming like him.

It’s less of a transaction and more of a ...

But it must also be said that Jesus believes in you. He believes that you can become his apprentice.

To be with your rabbi, become like him, and do as he did.

Hurry is, arguably, the number one challenge you will face should you decide to take following Jesus seriously. Like an enemy, it won’t just stand in your way; it will actively fight against you.

This, then, is spiritual formation: the process of being formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity.

Miracles, emotional breakthroughs, and profound moments of radical change do happen, and need to happen, but they are not the daily path of discipleship. Like growth spurts or invasive surgeries in a child or adolescent, they are an essential part of our development as persons, but most of our growth is a slow, incremental but noticeable maturation into adulthood.

Could the way forward be as simple as meeting people in the place of pain? Isn’t that what Jesus did? Could evangelism in our era look less like what Jude saw downtown and more like the stories in the Gospels?

You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.

This rule doesn’t mean a list of rules. It’s more of a set of practices, relationships, and commitments that is inspired by the Spirit for the sake of our wholeness in Christ.

Put simply, a Rule of Life is a plan to follow Jesus. To stay true to one’s commitment to apprentice under him.

The Christian intellectual Andy Crouch beautifully defines a Rule of Life as “a set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives.”[11]

Discipline is a means to an end—to be with Jesus, become like him, and do what he did. The psychologist Rich Plass put it this way in The Relational Soul, “Spiritual disciplines are not an end in themselves. They are means to an end….Disciplines set the soul on the path where it can come to know God and live present to others in love.”[26] Follow their logic—it’s spot on: Disciplines are the path, not the destination.

The practices are disciplines based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create time and space for us to access the presence and power of the Spirit and, in doing so, be transformed from the inside out.

Our part is to slow down, make space, and surrender to God; his part is to transform us—we simply do not have that power. Utilizing the disciplines, we can say with Paul, “God is working in [me], giving [me] the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

The spiritual writer Gary Thomas developed the concept of a “spiritual temperament” in his book Sacred Pathways, which is essentially a personality theory for prayer. He wrote, “There is great freedom in how we can meet with and enjoy God. This is by his design and according to his good pleasure.” His warning: “Beware of narrowing your approach to God.”

A Rule of Life from Practicing the Way