The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

by Dallas Willard

We have pointed out in earlier chapters that this does not mean “come into existence.” The kingdom of God is from everlastingly earlier to everlastingly later. It does not come into existence, nor does it cease. But in human affairs other “kingdoms” may for a time be in power, and often are. This second request asks for those kingdoms to be displaced, wherever they are, or brought under God’s rule.

The natural consequences of actions have been pretty well designed by God to lead us to be the persons we ought to be. To blunt their lessons may be to harm those we would help.

are not just promising or resolving to forgive, however. We are praying for help to forgive others, for, though it is up to us to forgive—we do it—we know we cannot do it without help. But we can expect help, for the “unity of spiritual orientation” discussed earlier in this chapter covers all these matters.

Now that I have come to know The Kingdom Among Us, I too will be merciful to those close to me. It is not just that I do not condemn them. That is important, of course, but it is not enough. I must have mercy. The kingdom and its God is great enough that “mercy and truth can meet together” (Ps. 85:7–10). And “Mercy brags about how it wins over judgment” (James 2:13). The provision of the Father in the life and death of his Son, and in the greatness of his own eternal heart, makes it possible.

Today even many Christians read and say “forgive us our trespasses” as “give me a break.” In the typically late-twentieth-century manner, this saves the ego and its egotism. “I am not a sinner, I just need a break!” But no, I need more than a break. I need pity because of who I am. If my pride is untouched when I pray for forgiveness, I have not prayed for forgiveness. I don’t even understand it.

But we will also become assured that any trial or evil that comes upon us has a special function in God’s plans. As with daily provision of food, there is continuous provision for every need, no matter how dire. We may not always have it ahead of time, but often right when we need it from the God who is right there with us. Our bedrock certainty of this will stand firmly upon our many experiences of the presence and goodness of our Father. We will have firsthand experience of how his strength is brought to perfection in our lives precisely by our weaknesses, combined with hopeful faith.

We should understand that God will usually spare us from trials, especially if we are living in the Lord’s Prayer. And we should also understand that, when trials are permitted, it only means that he has something better in mind for us than freedom from trials.

Dear Father always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us— may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven. Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us. Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours—forever— which is just the way we want it! “Just the way we want it” is not a bad paraphrase for “amen.” What is needed at the end of this great prayer is a ringing affirmation of the goodness of God and God’s world. If your nerves can take it, you might (occasionally?) try “Whoopee!” I imagine God himself will not mind.

The effect of such continuous study under Jesus would naturally be that we learn how to do everything we do “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17); that is, on his behalf or in his place; that is, once again, as if he himself were doing it. And of course that means we would learn “to conform to everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). In his presence our inner life will be transformed, and we will become the kind of people for whom his course of action is the natural (and supernatural) course of action.

You enter this kingdom community, he first points out, by a narrow gate. That is, there is a correct way to enter, and not just any approach—the “wide way that leads to disaster”—will succeed (vv. 13–14).

All one has to do to identify those who would mislead us is watch what they do and pay little attention to what they say. What they do will be the unerring sign of who they are on the inside. Trees and plants manifest their nature in their fruit: figs by bearing figs and not grapes. And what people do reveals, when thoroughly and honestly considered, the kind of person they really are (Matt. 7:16–20).

The four pictorial contrasts in this passage in Matthew 7 are these: The narrow gate and the wide gate (vv. 13–14). The good tree with its “insides,” and the bad tree (vv. 15–20). Subpicture—Wolves in sheep’s clothing. False leaders contrasted with the true: They do not have the spontaneous and constant goodness of the heart of Jesus (v. 15). Internally they are “wolves.” Final judgment of those who do “the will of my Father” and of those who try to substitute for that great deeds “in your name” (vv. 21–23). Those who hear him and do what he says (house on the rock) and those who hear him but do not do what he says (house on the sand) (vv. 24–27).

The narrow gate is not, as so often assumed, doctrinal correctness. The narrow gate is obedience—and the confidence in Jesus necessary to it. We can see that it is not doctrinal correctness because many people who cannot even understand the correct doctrines nevertheless place their full faith in him. Moreover, we find many people who seem to be very correct doctrinally but have hearts full of hatred and unforgiveness. The broad gate, by contrast, is simply doing whatever I want to do.

The great Pauline, Petrine, and Johannine passages, such as 1 Corinthians 13; Colossians 3; 1 Peter 2; 2 Pet. 1:1–15; 1 John 3:1–5:5, all convey exactly the same message in so many words, one of an inward transformation by discipleship to Jesus. In them the central point of reference is always a divine kind of love, agape, that comes to characterize the core of our personality. The deeds of “the law” naturally flow from it. The law is not the cause of personal goodness, as we have said before, but it invariably is the course of it.

If I am Jesus’ disciple that means I am with him to learn from him how to be like him.

One would never attempt to live in such a “rightness” if one thoroughly understood that every thought and intention lay open before an always present God. But many of us still try to do it today.

Unfortunately, the relentlessly legalistic bent of the human soul has, over time, led many to identify engulfment in the spirit with its outward manifestations, whether they be signs and wonders; other tongues; poverty, chastity, and obedience; power to convert unbelievers; or certain practices and symbols that have become denominationally distinctive. But, as important as such things are, they are not the reality of the kingdom life itself. The reality of the kingdom life is an inner one, a hidden one, with “the Father who is in secret.” And we often find it to be absent in those who convert many others or who manifest tongues, signs, wonders, and the like.

The most exalted outcome of submersion in the risen Christ is the transformation of the inner self to be like him.

So the kingdom of the heavens, from the practical point of view in which we all must live, is simply our experience of Jesus’ continual interaction with us in history and throughout the days, hours, and moments of our earthly existence.

And of course it is discipleship, real-life apprenticeship to Jesus, that is the passageway within The Kingdom Among Us from initial faith in Jesus to a life of fulfillment and routine obedience. That is precisely why Jesus told his people, when they saw him for the last time in his familiar visible form, to make disciples, students, apprentices to him from every ethnic group on earth. And to make disciples they would certainly have to be disciples.

It would take us far out of our path to enter into these hoary controversies. But fortunately there is no need. It is almost universally conceded today that you can be a Christian without being a disciple.4 And one who actually is an apprentice and co-laborer with Jesus in his or her daily existence is sure to be a “Christian” in every sense of the word that matters. The very term Christian was explicitly introduced in the New Testament—where, by the way, it is used only three times—to apply to disciples when they could no longer be called Jews, because many kinds of gentiles were now part of them. Now, people who are asked whether they are apprentices of a leading politician, musician, lawyer, or screenwriter would not need to think a second to respond. Similarly for those asked if they are studying Spanish or bricklaying with someone unknown to the public. It is hardly something that would escape one’s attention. The same is all the more true if asked about discipleship to Jesus. But, if asked whether they are good apprentices of whatever person or line of work concerned, they very well might hesitate. They might say no. Or yes. Asked if they could be better students, they would probably say yes. And all of this falls squarely within the category of being a disciple, or apprentice. For to be a disciple in any area or relationship is not to be perfect. One can be a very raw and incompetent beginner and still be a disciple. It is a part of the refreshing realism of the Gos...

Following up on what has already been said, then, a disciple, or apprentice, is simply someone who has decided to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is.

How does this apply to discipleship to Jesus? What is it, exactly, that he, the incarnate Lord, does? What, if you wish, is he “good at”? The answer is found in the Gospels: he lives in the kingdom of God, and he applies that kingdom for the good of others and even makes it possible for them to enter it for themselves. The deeper theological truths about his person and his work do not detract from this simple point. It is what he calls us to by saying, “Follow me.” The description Peter gives in the first “official” presentation of the Gospel to the gentiles provides a sharp picture of the Master under whom we serve as apprentices. “You know,” he says to Cornelius, “of Jesus, the one from Nazareth. And you know how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and curing all those under oppression by the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). And as a disciple of Jesus I am with him, by choice and by grace, learning from him how to live in the kingdom of God. This is the crucial idea. That means, we recall, how to live within the range of God’s effective will, his life flowing through mine. Another important way of putting this is to say that I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I. I am not necessarily learning to do everything he did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all that he did.

That my actual life is the focus of my apprenticeship to Jesus is crucial. Knowing this can help deliver us from the genuine craziness that the current distinction between “full-time Christian service” and “part-time Christian service” imposes on us. For a disciple of Jesus is not necessarily one devoted to doing specifically religious things as that is usually understood. To repeat, I am learning from Jesus how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life. Note, please, I am not learning from him how to lead his life. His life on earth was a transcendently wonderful one. But it has now been led. Neither I nor anyone else, even himself, will ever lead it again. And he is, in any case, interested in my life, that very existence that is me. There lies my need. I need to be able to lead my life as he would lead it if he were I.

So as his disciple I am not necessarily learning how to do special religious things, either as a part of “full-time service” or as a part of “part-time service.” My discipleship to Jesus is, within clearly definable limits, not a matter of what I do, but of how I do it. And it covers everything, “religious” or not. Brother Lawrence, who was a kitchen worker and cook, remarks. Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own…. It is a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer.

It is crucial for our walk in the kingdom to understand that the teachings of Jesus, which we have been examining at such length in this book, do not by themselves make a life. They were never intended to. Rather, they presuppose a life. But that causes no problem, for of course each one of us is provided a life automatically. And we know exactly what it is. It is who we are and what we do. It is precisely this life that God wants us to give to him. We must only be careful to understand its true dignity. To every person we can say with confidence, “You, in the midst of your actual life there, are exactly the person God wanted.”

The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels show us how to live the life we have been given through the time, place, family, neighbors, talents, and opportunities that are ours. His words left to us in scripture provide all we need in the way of general teachings about how to conduct our particular affairs. If we only put them into practice, along the lines previously discussed, most of the problems that trouble human life would be eliminated. That is why, as we have noted, Jesus directs his teaching in Matthew 5 through 7 toward things like murder and anger, contempt and lusting, family rejection, verbal bullying. This is real life. Though his teachings do not make a life, they intersect at every point with every life. So life in the kingdom is not just a matter of not doing what is wrong. The apprentices of Jesus are primarily occupied with the positive good that can be done during their days “under the sun” and the positive strengths and virtues that they develop in themselves as they grow toward “the kingdom prepared for them from the foundations of the world” (Matt. 25:34). What they, and God, get out of their lifetime is chiefly the person they become. And that is why their real life is so important. The cultivation of oneself, one’s family, one’s workplace and community—especially the community of believers—thus becomes the center of focus for the apprentice’s joint life with his or her teacher. It is with this entire context in view that we most richly and accurately spe...

But how, exactly, is one to make one’s job a primary place of apprenticeship to Jesus? Not, we quickly say, by becoming the Christian nag-in-residence, the rigorous upholder of all propriety, and the dead-eye critic of everyone else’s behavior. I hope that this would already be abundantly clear from our study of Jesus and of his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. A gentle but firm noncooperation with things that everyone knows to be wrong, together with a sensitive, nonofficious, nonintrusive, nonobsequious service to others, should be our usual overt manner. This should be combined with inward attitudes of constant prayer for whatever kind of activity our workplace requires and genuine love for everyone involved. As circumstances call for them, special points in Jesus’ teachings and example, such as nonretaliation, refusal to press for financial advantage, consciousness of and appropriate assistance to those under special handicaps, and so on would come into play. And we should be watchful and prepared to meet any obvious spiritual need or interest in understanding Jesus with words that are truly loving, thoughtful, and helpful. It is not true, I think, that we fulfill our obligations to those around us by only living the gospel. There are many ways of speaking inappropriately, of course—even harmfully—but it is always true that words fitly spoken are things of beauty and power that bring life and joy. And you cannot assume that people understand what is ...

But, once again, the specific work to be done—whether it is making ax handles or tacos, selling automobiles or teaching kindergarten, investment banking or political office, evangelizing or running a Christian education program, performing in the arts or teaching English as a second language—is of central interest to God. He wants it well done. It is work that should be done, and it should be done as Jesus himself would do it. Nothing can substitute for that. In my opinion, at least, as long as one is on the job, all peculiarly religious activities should take second place to doing “the job” in sweat, intelligence, and the power of God. That is our devotion to God. (I am assuming, of course, that the job is one that serves good human purposes.) Our intention with our job should be the highest possible good in its every aspect, and we should pursue that with conscious expectation of a constant energizing and direction from God. Although we must never allow our job to become our life, we should, within reasonable limits, routinely sacrifice our comfort and pleasure for the quality of our work, whether it be ax handles, tacos, or the proficiency of a student we are teaching.

One who does not know this way of “job discipleship” by experience cannot begin to imagine what release and help and joy there is in it. And to repeat the crucial point, if we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of our waking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives.6 Those waking hours will be times when we are on our own on our job. Our time at work—even religious work—will turn out to be a “holiday from God.”

On the other hand, if you dislike or even hate your job, a condition epidemic in our culture, the quickest way out of that job, or to joy in it, is to do it as Jesus would. This is the very heart of discipleship, and we cannot effectively be an apprentice of Jesus without integrating our job into The Kingdom Among Us.

But now a special word is required concerning those of us whose “job”—what we get paid for—is the work of opening and ministering the kingdom to others. “Church work,” we might call it, or the “full-time Christian service” just referred to. Jesus himself began to “make disciples” very soon after he entered his own public ministry of God’s rule, or kingdom, to ethnic Israelites. That is to say, he took apprentices into the work that he was doing to teach them how to do what he did. His work had three main phases, clearly enumerated and illustrated in the Gospels (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 10:7–8).

PROCLAIMING. The first was simply announcing God’s new move forward in human history. In and through the person of Jesus himself, the government, or “kingdom” of God from the heavens, was now available to every one. Heaven, we have seen, is right now, right here, around our bodies, hovering beside our heads—“in Him we live and move and have our being.” Eternity is not something waiting to happen, something that will commence later. It is now here. Time runs its course within eternity.

With the coming of Jesus it was not only here, as it had always been, but was directly and interactively accessible to every one of the Israelites, no matter what their standing in life or what they had or had not done—to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” They did not have to be among the glitterati, the humanly blessed. All they had to do was to trust this man Jesus as the one anointed to bring God personally into human history and therefore the Lord of that history. This message of the present availability of God’s rule to everyone was to be announced, or “preached.” Jesus did that, and soon he sent his disciples to do the same thing. And once the foundation had been historically laid in flesh-and-blood Jews, historically prepared for that purpose, it was to be preac...

MANIFESTING. The second phase of Jesus’ work, in which his disciples were therefore to be apprenticed, was the manifestation of God’s rule from the heavens. This was done by words and deeds whose powers lay beyond, or even set aside, the usual course of life and nature (as well as the effects of evil spirits). They were a revelation of God’s good presence here and now. Such works were, of course, primarily acts of love done to help those in need. But they were also signs (semeion) or “indications,” of God’s reigning. They showed God acting with the servants of the kingdom, soon to b...

TEACHING. The third phase of their apprenticeship was in teaching about the nature of God and about what his rule among human beings was like.

Of course, points similar to those made here about our jobs are to be made with reference to our family relationships, our recreations, our community relationships and activities, our creative and artistic experiences, and whatever else makes up a part of our lives. Always we are asking, How can these things be a part of the kingdom of God? And we expect Jesus to provide guidance and help in answering this question. But we do not do this in a picky, self-righteous, self-obsessed manner. We know his grace and gracefulness and his desire for us to be persons in our own right. We are to count for something, not just be robots. His spirit and the spirit of our relationship rules out all paralyzing and oppressive attitudes and enables every aspect of our lives to be a joyous journey through the fields of the Lord.

In summary, then, the disciple or apprentice of Jesus, as recognized by the New Testament, is one who has firmly decided to learn from him how to lead his or her life, whatever that may be, as Jesus himself would do it. And, as best they know how, they are making plans—taking the necessary steps, progressively arranging and rearranging their affairs—to do this. All of this will, in one way or another, happen within the special and unfailing community he has established on earth. And the apprentices then are, of course, perfectly positioned to learn how to do everything Jesus taught. That is the process envisioned in the Great Commission of Matt. 28:18–20.

These little stories perfectly express the condition of soul in one who chooses life in the kingdom with Jesus. The sense of the goodness to be achieved by that choice, of the opportunity that may be missed, the love for the value discovered, the excitement and joy over it all, is exactly the same as it was for those who were drawn to Jesus in those long-ago days when he first walked among us. It is also the condition of soul from which discipleship can be effectively chosen today.

The entire point of this passage is that as long as one thinks anything may really be more valuable than fellowship with Jesus in his kingdom, one cannot learn from him. People who have not gotten the basic facts about their life straight will therefore not do the things that make learning from Jesus possible and will never be able to understand the basic points in the lessons to be learned.

unless we clearly see the superiority of what we receive as his students over every other thing that might be valued, we cannot succeed in our discipleship to him. We will not be able to do the things required to learn his lessons and move ever deeper into a life that is his kingdom.

And what does “dwelling,” or “continuing,” in his word mean? It means to center your life upon the very things we have been studying in this book: his good news about The Kingdom Among Us, about who is really well off and who is not, and about true goodness of heart and how it expresses itself in action. We will fill our souls with the written Gospels. We will devote our attention to these teachings, in private study and inquiry as well as public instruction. And, negatively, we will refuse to devote our mental space and energy to the fruitless, even stupefying and degrading, stuff that constantly clamors for our attention. We will attend to it only enough to avoid it.

But dwelling in his word is not just intensive and continuous study of the Gospels, though it is that. It is also putting them into practice. To dwell in his word we must know it: know what it is and what it means. But we really dwell in it by putting it into practice. Of course, we shall do so very imperfectly at first. At that point we have perhaps not even come to be a committed disciple. We are only thinking about how to become one. Nevertheless, we can count on Jesus to meet us in our admittedly imperfect efforts to put his word into practice. Where his word is, there he is. He does not leave his words to stand alone in the world. And his loveliness and strength will certainly be personally revealed to those who will simply make the effort to do what his words indicate.

So we are, then, disciples in disciple making. We learn from Jesus how to make disciples as he did. We have seen that this involves proclaiming, manifesting, and teaching the kingdom of God. The teaching aspect becomes very important in making disciples. In it we help others to think accurately about “the effective range of God’s will” and to understand why it is as it is and how it works. When we have come to the point where we can do this, then in conjunction with our own experience of becoming a disciple, making a disciple is no longer something mysterious. It is only a matter of appropriately informing people about Jesus and his kingdom and helping them, through prayer and guidance, to make a decision.

You cannot have students if you have no teacher.

It also becomes clear, in the light of the disappearance of the kingdom and Jesus the teacher, why the making of converts, or church members, has become the mandatory goal of Christian ministers—if even that—while the making of disciples is pushed to the very margins of Christian existence. Many Christian groups simply have no idea what discipleship is and have relegated it to para-church organizations.

Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church. It is not the much discussed moral failures, financial abuses, or the amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only effects of the underlying problem. The fundamental negative reality among Christian believers now is their failure to be constantly learning how to live their lives in The Kingdom Among Us. And it is an accepted reality. The division of professing Christians into those for whom it is a matter of whole-life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer, or client, relationship to the church has now been an accepted reality for over fifteen hundred years.10

The second thing for us to do if we are to make apprentices to Jesus is to intend to make disciples. This is now a familiar theme, of central importance. It must be our conscious objective, consciously implemented, to bring others to the point where they are daily learning from Jesus how to live their actual lives as he would live them if he were they. That implemented intention would soon transform everything among professing Christians as we know them. For example, much time is spent among Christians trying to smooth over hurt feelings and even deep wounds, given and received, and to get people to stop being angry, retaliatory, and unforgiving. But suppose, instead, we devoted our time to inspiring and enabling Christians and others to be people who are not offendable and not angry and who are forgiving as a matter of course. “Great peace,” the psalmist says, “have they who love Thy law. Nothing trips them up” (Ps. 119:165). To intentionally make disciples is to open the doorway for people to become like that. That is why it is such a great gift to humankind.

But really to intend this is no trivial matter, of course. It means a huge change of direction. The weight of the tradition of client, or consumer, Christianity, which now without thought dominates the local congregations and denominations of Christian people—indeed, the entire Christian culture—stands against any such intention—not consciously, perhaps, but just by the inertia of “how things are,” of the daily rounds and what “has to get done.” This established order can actually keep pastors or teachers in a church setting from thinking of making disciples as an issue that concerns them at all.

This is why in most settings disciple making is regarded as something to be handled by para-church organizations or possibly theological schools, not the local church itself. It is assumed to be enough for church leaders to make converts or induct members and leave discipleship to take care of itself or be cared for by “specialists.” Or perhaps we vaguely hope it will just “happen,” even though the record clearly shows that it rarely does.