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

by John Mark Comer

“What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale.”[5]

To be human is to change. To grow. To evolve. This is by God’s design.

Who or what am I becoming?

Who or what am I going to believe in?

There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.

Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.

meant to walk alongside him in a posture of listening, learning, observation, obedience, and imitation.[22]

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

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

The Way of Jesus is “narrow,” meaning, it is a very specific way to live. And if you follow it, it will lead you to life, both in this age and the age to come.

The “broad” way is that of the majority culture, which is as simple as it is crass: “Follow the crowd and do whatever you want.”

This is the first and most important goal of apprenticeship to Jesus: to be with him, to spend every

waking moment aware of his presence and attentive to his voice. To cultivate a with-ness to Jesus as the baseline of your entire life.

Each time you get a little mental breath in the busyness of your life—that split second after you hit send on the email, the moment when you come to a red light, or those first conscious thoughts when you awake from sleep—through deliberate practice, you can train your mind to come back to God, come back to God, come back to God…

Eventually your mind—and through it, your entire body and soul—will anchor itself in God, will “abide.”

pray.

meditate on a passage of Scripture, talk to God about my life, listen for his voice,

Keep showing up.

we need to find a diversion-free place to get away and be alone with the Father.

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

find your secret place.

pursuing simplicity.

“You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”[68]

So, this will require us to take intentional steps to slow down.[71]

life is fleeting; don’t miss it.

“The best decade of your life will be your seventies, the second best will be your eighties, and the third will be your sixties.”

our richest and most joyful and helpful to others.

is, Are we becoming more loving?

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.

Reading Scripture Memorizing Scripture Studying the Bible Listening to sermons Listening to podcasts Reading books Meditating

There’s no better place to get to know someone than over a meal, no better place to dialogue and even disagree in love. Because of that, there’s no better place to preach the gospel (the next rhythm) than around a table, with bread and wine.

Everyone is preaching a gospel. Apprentices of Jesus are those who preach his gospel.

“preach the gospel,” all we mean is to tell people about Jesus: Announce the good news of Jesus and the availability of life with him in the kingdom of God.

more like cooking a meal for your neighbor? Or gently offering a prophetic word to a friend?

Or an act of quiet service in your city?

That’s what justice is—making wrong things right, crooked things straight.

“Practicing justice is an act of joining God in seeing that the created order (people and everything else) receives what it is due.”[61] And doing this no matter the pain to yourself.

Every person we meet is a God opportunity—to love and to serve.

As you are going about your ordinary life, live with your eyes wide open to see what the Father is doing, all around you, and then to partner with him.

We will find our hearts drawn to particular justice issues, people groups, neighbor families, or lines of work. And it will feel like joy.