A few years ago, I did a bible study series with one of my small groups addressing different issues of the heart and a relevant spiritual discipline to help "train" that issue of the heart. We started with a vision for our small group and an article by Dallas Willard called: How the disciple lives naturally comes out of who the disciple is. It was an awesome and fruitful series, so here is week number one and the following posts will be weeks 2-6.
Honesty: You will not be judged for being honest. This should be a safe place where you can critically look at what you actually believe about God, his word, his plan for your life, his love, etc., not just what you are supposed to believe on a head level. It is crucial and ok to be honest. Best gauge of what you really believe—look at your actions.
Approach to the Word: Our approach to the Word is to be doers, not just wise know it alls. Allow the Word to read us and show us how we need to grow and change. On a similar note, Scripture is authoritative and has meaning/ truth apart from our interpretation. Remember we don’t determine what it means, so it is important we study it with integrity, humility, patience, and a desire to actually implement and do the things we read. Cool quote by Dallas Willard: “There isn’t a single thing that Jesus taught that a person cannot by engaging His grace come to do. Not a single thing. But you have to want to. And you have to decide to.”
Learning to ask questions: We don’t have God figured out and we never fully will here on earth. So we don’t need to seek out simple and quick answers. We can learn to ask questions and rest in the questions as we continue to fervently pursue God and “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”
Be humble and listen: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4). Be motivated out of love for one another.
The main goal: The point of Christianity is not to be conformed to a set of rules, it is to have a vibrant, love relationship with the person Jesus Christ…it is about running after him first and foremost and being willing to give up anything and everything for him and his kingdom. I truly believe that in his upside down kingdom, it is true that only when “we lose our lives for his sake we will find it.”
Two purposes of small group: Small group = group of friends and small group = group of disciples. I want to have both of those components. Both a place where we find comfort, community, and a place to be known and real, and also a place to pursue Jesus with a group of people (a team) who want to become like him.
Thinking critically about the way we think: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” (Romans 12:1). We live in a culture of tolerance, consumerism, excessiveness and materialism, vanity, and the list goes on. I think that as Christians, we have to become more aware of the dominant values of culture versus the values of God’s Kingdom that Jesus taught. It is important that we begin to think differently about the world, ourselves, others, and our role and purpose in the world as Christians, shaped by Jesus.
Quote from Dallas on this point:
There can be little doubt that if the teachings and example of Jesus were generally followed in a given society, that society would be remarkably better off than any which followed another way. There would be no sexual harassment, no gutted savings and loans, no homelessness or gang violence in a society that substantially accepted Christian principles of life. It is not the Christian who loses when social prejudice goes against Christ, but the society itself.
We must keep in mind that truth and reality are not in themselves pluralistic. If your gas tank is empty, social acceptance of your right to believe that it is full will not help you get your car to run. Everything is just exactly what it is, and you can develop cultural traditions, vote, wish, or whatever you please, and that will not change a thing.
Truth and reality do not adapt to us. It is up to us to adapt to them. A four thousand year old tradition does not become truer as the years go by. If it is false or wrong, it simply continues to be a long-standing error. If it is popular, it is widespread. If adopted by the powerful, it is authoritative. But it is still wrong. Acceptance of its right to exist in a pluralistic society does not make it any more correct, and will be of no help to those following it when they finally run into reality.
Much of what is now written in support of pluralism or "inclusivism" in religion assumes that there is no "way things are" with God, or at least that we cannot know how they are. Hence all views of God are said to be equally true because all are equally in the dark--an astonishingly fallacious inference.
Finally, Christians in a pluralistic society, where there is no presumption in favor of their beliefs or practices, but perhaps a strong bias against, are in the very best position to show the true excellence of the Way of Christ. When Elijah called the prophets of Baal to the contest on Mount Carmel, he gave them every advantage that could be given. And when it came his turn to call for fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice, he had his altar and sacrifice flooded three times over with water before he prayed. The "disadvantage" of the water proved to be no problem for Jehovah, who answered by fire to consume the sacrifice.
Things have not much changed. Our Mount Carmel may be our university, or our business or profession, and the floods of social discrimination may flow against us. This is only to make all the more obvious, to those with eyes to see, that God is with us, and that the life of His resurrected Son is effectual in every dimension of our existence. We welcome our life in a pluralistic society as the very condition most favorable to our own sure knowledge of God, as our aspirations and our accomplishments testify that He is the one at work in us to will as well as to do the good things He desires for His world.
Then we read the following article by Dallas Willard:
"How the disciple lives naturally comes out of who the disciple is."
As Jesus’ disciple, I am his apprentice in kingdom living. I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of the Heavens as he would lead my life if he were I. It is my faith in him that led me to become his disciple. My confidence in him simply means that I believe that he is right about everything: that all that he is and says shows what life is at its best, what it was intended by God to be. “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4 NAS)
Being his apprentice is, therefore, not a matter of special “religious” activities, but an orientation and quality of my entire existence. This is what is meant by Jesus when he says that those who do not forsake all cannot be his disciple. (Luke 14:26 & 33) The emphasis is upon the all. There must be nothing held of greater value than Jesus and his kingdom. He must be clearly seen as the most important thing in human life, and being his apprentice as the greatest opportunity any human being ever has.
When this orientation of the whole life has come upon us and been accepted, then the grace that brought it can begin to move throughout every aspect of what we are and do. Grace is God acting in our lives to bring about what we do not deserve and cannot accomplish on our own. But we are not passive in this process. We are commanded to put off the old person and put on the new. (Col. 3:9-10; Eph. 4:22-24) We are told to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (II Peter 3:18) This is something for us to do, and , although we cannot do it on our own, it will not be done for us. Being alive in Christ means that we can do whatever it is we need to do to increasingly take on his character and live in his power.
The ultimate outcome of this process is expressed by Paul the Apostle: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Col. 3:17) And again: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (I Cor. 10:31) My entire life is to be caught up in the life that Jesus Christ himself is now living on earth and will continue throughout eternity. And that is why being his apprentice is the greatest opportunity any human being ever has. That is how grace possesses our whole life. That is how those “saved by grace through faith…are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10)
Living as Jesus’ disciple, I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of the Heavens everywhere I am, in every activity I engage in. There are three dimensions of this learning.
First, I am learning to do the things which Jesus explicitly said to do. It is quite literally nonsense to call Jesus “Lord,” and not do what he said. “Lord” means nothing in such a case. (Luke 6:46-49) But because I do accept him as Lord, his instructions on behavior are my treasures for living life. Of course I cannot do what he said by just trying. I must train! I must, through appropriate courses of action, become inwardly transformed by grace to become the kind of person—in my inmost thoughts, feelings, attitudes and directions of will—who will routinely do the kinds of things he said to do. I will then not be governed by anger, contempt or lust. And I will be able to bless those who curse me, love my enemies, and so forth, because I am one in whom the character and power of Christ has come to dwell through the processes of discipleship to Christ.
Second, I am learning to conduct the usual activities of life—in home, school, community, business and government—in the character and power of Christ. Jesus himself, of course, spent most of his life on earth as an “independent contractor” or businessman. Jesus could have led the ordinary life of the ordinary citizen in all of its legitimate respects. He can show us how to live now, as a mother or father, banker or computer programmer, teacher or artist, in the Kingdom of the Heavens. His character and power and personal guidance will lead us into life as it should be in all of these areas of human existence.
Third, I am learning to exercise the power of the kingdom—of Christ in his Word and Spirit—to minister good and defeat evil in all of the connections of earthly existence. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38) Apprenticeship to Jesus means that, in tiny steps, we learn to exercise this power seen in Jesus. Growth in character is primary, for power requires substance of character if it is to be used for Christ’s purposes. Christ had no character problems, but we do. Prayer, in its aspect of training for Kingdom life, is primarily a matter of learning to exercise power in a way that is both profitable and safe. Through it, in the usual case, we take our first steps in “receiving abundance of grace” and “reigning in life by One, Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:17)
So character is more important than power for us, but it does not replace power. The fruit of the Spirit (thoroughly Christlike character) flourishes only in a context of regular communal manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit. And this manifest power of the Spirit in life is not something restricted to “church services.” In this matter also, Jesus is our example and our teacher. He acted with the Kingdom wherever he was. The “rivers of living water” which, as he said “shall flow from the center of the believers life” (from his “belly,” John 7:38), will continually flow from us, as it did from him, wherever we may be.
Now growth in grace—in God acting in our life—is something we must plan for by regular engagement in activities that enable us to receive God’s grace in all areas of our spirit (will), thoughts, feelings, body, social relations, and the deepest depths of our soul. We have been thoroughly “occupied” by sin—which is mainly just exaltation of “me,” and the consequences thereof. Our intention as apprentices of Jesus is to become the kind of person who lives in the character and power of Christ. We must, then, do those things that will enable us to become that kind of person, from the inside out—through appropriate actions and practices.
Such actions and practices are “disciplines for the spiritual life.” They are well-known from observing Christ and his people. They include such practices as solitude, silence, fasting, study, worship, fellowship, prayer, etc. There is no complete list of such practices, though some are more well-known and widely practiced than others, because they are more central to breaking the power of indwelling sin and increasingly filling our life with grace. Disciplines are, in essence, activities in our power that enable us, by grace, to do what we cannot do by direct effort—by “just trying.” We cannot, by just trying, succeed in loving our enemies and heartily blessing those who curse us. But by a wise practice of disciplines in the presence of Christ, we can become people who will routinely and easily do so.
In disciplines we need to be informed and experimental. They are not righteousness, but wisdom. We must be practical with them, and not picky. We must not be ‘heroic’ or think we are earning anything from God. Disciplines for the spiritual life are places in which we meet with Jesus to be taught by him, and he is our guide into how they are best practiced. We should not be overly concerned about how others do them. In a very short time Jesus will lead us into the practice of them that is best for us.
The crucial thing is that, as disciples, we have a plan for carrying out the decision we have made to devote ourselves to becoming like our Master and Lord—to increasingly living in the character and power of Christ. Disciples are those who, seriously intending to become like Jesus from the inside out, systematically and progressively rearrange their affairs to that end, under the guidance of the Word and the Spirit. That is how the disciple lives.
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