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

by John Mark Comer

For those of us who desire to follow Jesus, here is the reality we must turn and face: If we’re not being intentionally formed by Jesus himself, then it’s highly likely we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something else.[6]

The word Christian is used only three times in the New Testament.

the word disciple (or apprentice) is used 269 times,

what’s striking about this “foundation” that “almost all are familiar with” is that it includes absolutely nothing about following Jesus and intending to obey him.

“A person who is simply a man of faith is [not] a disciple.”[32]

in the West, we have created a cultural milieu where you can be a Christian but not an apprentice of Jesus.

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

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”[41]

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

if we don’t take our discipleship to Jesus seriously, the odds are very high that we will become less like Jesus over time and more like “Rome” (or L.A., or London, or Lagos, and so on).

Learning theorists frame apprenticeship as a four-stage training process: I do; you watch. I do; you help. You do; I help. You do; I watch.[5]

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]

Jesus’ invitation—as I have repeated ad nauseam—was not to convert to a new religion called Christianity but to apprentice under him into life in the kingdom of God.

it takes more self-mastery to yield your will than to wield it.

As a result, I find myself caught in the cross currents of desire…I want Jesus’ life, but I don’t want to die.

Jim Elliot put it, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”[20]

Willard was once asked how to become a saint. He answered, “By doing the next right thing.”[25]