Okay, we need discipleship. Now what?
My last blog post ended with these words: “What if Christians pointed beyond the gym, the mindfulness, the healthy lifestyle–yes, even beyond the notion that we can rewrite the essential biological and spiritual markers of our personhood–and pointed instead to discipleship to Jesus Christ, not merely as a set of fulfilling spiritual habits, but as the road to a power that leaves all our earthly endeavors in the dust? We are made to be like Jesus here and now. Why not start today?”
The exhortation runs the risk of sounding intimidating, rather than encouraging. Why? The answer is painful, but we need to face it directly. The truth is that we don’t have much guidance here because most churches in North America don’t make discipleship a priority, preferring instead to focus on effective communication of the “right” information. It makes sense: Sharp communicators draw crowds and solid information builds credibility. In my book, I call this the “information saves” mindset—the notion that the right information necessarily translates to the right behavior. This mindset has led numerous self-identifying Christians to believe that discipleship is an optional feature of the Christian life.
Before we proceed, however, we need a basic definition of discipleship. In simple terms, a disciple is an apprentice to someone. Think of a plumber, or a blacksmith, or a carpenter—all trades that require a time of careful observation followed by hands-on experience. The apprentice will begin by observing his master, but eventually, he’ll need to pick up a few splinters and develop his own calluses. Similarly, Christian men and women are Jesus’s apprentices, seeking to become like him not by simply knowing about him (plenty of atheists are in this category), but by obeying his commands. In our day-to-day lives, the basic litmus test of whether we accept the authority of a given expert is measured in terms of our willingness to follow their instructions. This principle holds true with physicians, auto mechanics, and tax attorneys. Why would it be any different with our Lord? But once again, since most of our churches don’t make obedience to Christ their first priority, many of the folks filling the pews simply assume that the only thing necessary for the Christian life is knowing enough about Jesus, rather than knowing him. This is a bit like doing copious research on a prescription from our doctor without ever taking the medicine. By focusing exclusively on the mastery of propositional knowledge about the Christian faith, many of our churches have unwittingly divorced obedience to Christ from faithfulness to him. But what is a Christian if not a person who aims to do what Jesus said?
The practical results of this truncated approach to the Christian life become obvious in times of crisis—moral failure, mounting fear and anxiety in the face of life’s inevitable troubles, and helplessness in the face of serious temptation. Consider Scripture’s ecstatic descriptions of Christian transformation and compare that to the professing Christians in our communities. By most accounts, the contrast could not be more pronounced; we simply don’t see transformation in our churches. Is the problem really that we just need to read more books, go to more conferences, and listen to better podcasts? Please don’t hear me disparaging these marvelous resources, by the way. When it comes to Christian resources, we truly have an embarrassment of riches. But mere information won’t be enough. At a certain point, you have to stop studying workout regimens and healthy diets and actually begin exercising and eating well. Knowledge is necessary, but not sufficient. You have to practice what you preach and what is preached to you.
Dallas Willard has a helpful acronym here: “VIM.” It stands for “vision, intention, and means.” If we want to obey Christ, we need a plan just as surely as we would if we were undertaking a home renovation project, a new diet, or fitness training. This is part of what Jesus is getting at when he instructs us to “count the cost” of pursuing discipleship to him (Luke 14:25-33). The examples he gives (a major construction project, a battle plan) couldn’t be more practical. I’m aware that using this kind of practical language in conjunction with the spiritual life may sound disorienting, but may I suggest to you that the reason for this is that we’ve successfully elevated Christ into irrelevance in our practical lives. Many of us have a sacred category (God, church, our spiritual habits) that’s carefully cordoned off from our everyday lives. The motivations behind such a maneuver may be noble, but the results often lead us to disbelieve in the practical realities of the spiritual world. Just look at our general approach to prayer. When we’re confronted by some of life’s routine challenges (death, relational breakdown, illness, unemployment, financial uncertainty), prayer is often our “last resort,” the place we go after we’ve exhausted all other options.
How do we begin to pursue discipleship to Christ? Start with the vision of being a person who has been transformed into His likeness. Dallas Willard once remarked, “Christ’s commands are either easy or impossible.” It’s a statement worth turning over in your mind for a while. See what you think of it. The vision is to become the kind of person for whom Jesus’s commands are routine and easy—a natural outworking of one’s inward condition. Do you believe that’s possible? If so, we need to make it our intention to pursue it. That will involve planning and goal-setting. Fortunately, the Lord has given us tools for just such a pursuit. The church calls them the “spiritual disciplines.” As Willard has said so well, these are time-tested strategies purposely undertaken to bring our entire being into cooperation with God’s will. Though there’s lots of room for creativity here, we can name the most famous disciplines: prayer, solitude, fasting, scripture reading and memorization, acts of mercy done in secret. Notice how all of these practices involve your body. In the next blog post, we’ll explore the importance of that fact, as well as some of the practical means to a goal of Christlikeness.
