The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

Discipleship means following Jesus.”

I want to write a discipleship book for normal people, for people like me who know that discipleship means following Jesus—and we know that following Jesus is totally worth it, because Jesus is the end-all, be-all—but we often find that following Jesus takes us to some pretty difficult places.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Rom. 7:18–23)

Jesus is looking specifically for the people who can’t get their act together.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. (Rom. 8:1–3)

This is how I like to think about discipleship, then—not just following Jesus, but refollowing Jesus every day. We go off track so easily.

Our souls are greatly troubled. They are greatly troubled especially when we don’t feel they are. Sin is deceptive. The devil comes as an angel of light.

You’ve got to hook your soul on this anchor called Christ or you will lose it, I assure you.

The sins of garden-variety human beings are frustratingly redundant.

If I could go back in time, I would tell many church folks I pastored that I didn’t need any help feeling like a failure. Feeling like a failure is my default state.

No, the Beatitudes are not laws. They aren’t steps or tips. These blessings are good tidings! They are announcements of something happening, not instructions of things to do.

you are still dealing with shame, you need to know that when you have come in faith to the Lord for forgiveness, your sin has been paid for by the blood of Jesus on that cross, where he was hung naked, receiving your shame in front of everybody, including those who tortured and mocked him and made jokes about him.

In John 1:16, the apostle tells us that the fullness of Jesus provides “grace upon grace.”

One of the subtle dangers of the way many Christians “do discipleship” is that they are always somehow looking at Jesus and yet never really seeing him.

You and I come to Jesus looking for some kind of pick-me-up, and Jesus offers his flesh.

Every day when you encounter God—in your devotional time, in your time of worship, in your community groups or classes, or in any other moment in which you spend time with Jesus—you face the choice of simply looking at Jesus or actually trying to see him.

but because all of their other interests have dulled their spiritual senses.

When our vision is constantly

occupied by small things, we are tempted to yawn more at the glory of God. We have to look at big things

“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1).

What we behold, we in some way become.

Paul explores just before he lays out his life-altering claim that beholding the glory of Jesus is what actually changes

we are holy not because of what we’ve done but because of what Jesus has done.

And so it turns out that the direct route to God-honoring behavior is born not of good behavior but of good beholding.

The porn promises release. The abstinence promises pain.

I didn’t simply have a behavior problem but a belief problem, a worship problem.

Beholding Christ’s glory is the number-one directive for following Jesus.

To be gospel-centered is not to be law-avoiding.

God owns all of life, and worshiping God means we must revolve around him, not he us.

Spirit who authors our faith will perfect it. The Spirit who justifies us will sanctify us, and the Spirit who sanctifies us will glorify us.

followship of Jesus does not cease to involve effort.

We are not holy because we work. We work because we are holy.

But the primary reason to read the Bible is not to learn stuff but to be stuff.

Transformation is the primary reason the written Word of God exists.

If we’re going to look at following Jesus as “abiding in Christ,” we have to dwell in God’s Word.

The more we dwell in Scripture, developing a greater taste and feel for it, the less sweet and less comforting the things of the world will taste and feel.

I suspect the struggles so many of us have in sticking with Bible study are directly related to our failure to listen and look for the glory of Christ there.

It’s a very strange thing, this Bible; it’s very mysterious. To see what we need to see, we have to hear what we need to hear.

But it turns out that hearing is believing. It turns out, actually, that to see we have to first hear. But to really hear we have to really listen.

Let’s tune our hearts to Scripture and look for Jesus there.

To know God we must know Jesus.

If you plan on keeping Christ at the center of your life, you must plan on keeping Christ at the center of your Christian practice, including your Scripture reading. Colossians 1:17 tells us, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

One of the symptoms of hurry sickness, he warns, is the diminished ability to love those to whom we have made the deepest promises. Hurry sickness makes us too tired and too distracted to love well.

Are you too busy “living” to enjoy abiding in Christ?

I was multitasking prayer.

The spiritually ambitious among us may think adding prayer to our repertoire of multiple tasks helps us better engage spiritually, but when the only time we pray is while doing other things, we program ourselves toward spiritual distortion and relational imbalance with God.

but the words and actions of Jesus reveal that intentional, attentive, and solitary prayer is vital for a life of submission to the Father’s will.

In Ephesians 6:18, Paul tells the church, “[Pray] at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”

“pray without ceasing.”

if we looked not for “results” in prayer but relationship, we might find it more appealing.