Practicing the Way, Part One: Learn, Practice, and Share under Christ's Direction
Learn from Christ with a readiness to change. Test useful ideas by Scripture, practice what you've understood, and welcome encouragement from faithful people.
#326 — Practicing the Way (Pt.1)
Jun 10, 2024
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Ask what following is changing
Religious activity should reach the life we live outside it. We can read, assemble, and pray while still needing to ask what God's teaching is changing in our treatment of people. A disciple wants to learn more than a way of confirming every familiar choice. A disciple wants to understand the Lord more clearly and become more faithful in responding to Him.
An apprentice learns by hearing the teacher and practicing under direction. Luke 6:40 helps us picture a trained disciple becoming like the teacher. Following Jesus means giving his actual instruction room to shape us, rather than borrowing a name for a plan we've chosen ourselves. Applied to Christ, the picture should move us toward His actual words and character. It doesn't make us equal to Him, transfer every feature of His unique ministry to us, or allow a favored author to define discipleship independently of Scripture.
Test the helpful suggestion
I found useful suggestions in John Mark Comer's Practicing the Way, along with claims about prophecy, healing, and inward messages that need careful examination. We don't have to approve every teaching in a book because one practical observation helped us. Consider each claim under Scripture. Discernment requires examining the particular claim rather than either approving or dismissing a whole work because it has helped us in one area.
A promise Jesus made to his apostles needs to be read as a promise to them. We mustn't assume it gives every later believer the same authority or miraculous gifts. God's power is real, but that doesn't make our preferred explanation a revelation from him. God's power shouldn't be limited by our imagination, but our imagination shouldn't be announced as His revelation. Second Timothy 3:14–17 directs us to the Scriptures for the instruction that equips faithful conduct. Let them test every proposed method and claim.
Depend on the Lord while working
Willpower becomes a poor foundation when we ask it to provide everything growth needs. We resolve to improve, then struggle again and wonder whether greater severity toward ourselves is the only answer. Christian effort belongs within reliance on the Lord who gives us reason to hope. Christian effort needs a better foundation than confidence in our own resolve.
Ephesians 6:10–18 calls us to strength in the Lord and gives us armor with which to stand. Truth, faith, God's word, and prayer belong in our response. Dependence gives effort its direction instead of leaving us to measure everything by the force of our determination. Dependence doesn't replace effort; it directs it. Philippians 4:10–13 likewise concerns Paul's learned contentment across abundance and need, not a promise that we can achieve any objective. Trust Christ, ask for help, and act faithfully without turning a desired earthly result into the proof that He has strengthened you.
Let study reach a response
Information doesn't automatically become obedience. We may know a passage well and still avoid letting it speak to a familiar conversation or private habit. If study leaves that resistance untouched, the answer is to receive the teaching more honestly, rather than blame the teaching itself. More reading isn't the problem; an unresponsive use of reading is. James 1:22–25 warns against hearing without doing and uses the picture of a person who looks in a mirror and then forgets.
Keep studying with a readiness to respond. Ask where the passage's instruction meets something you actually do, then take the needed step. A teaching about honesty may require correcting a misleading impression you've allowed to remain because explaining it would be embarrassing. If it concerns patience, examine a recurring conversation. Scripture's sufficiency doesn't mean that a reader's response is unnecessary. Its teaching equips and calls us to live the truth it reveals.
Examine familiar assumptions
Familiar explanations can feel settled before we've studied them ourselves. Family examples and community habits may teach us much good, but they can also narrow what we're willing to consider. Let Scripture examine what we've inherited as carefully as a proposal we've just encountered. Those influences may include much good. They can also make us reluctant to consider a teaching that challenges the accepted limits of generosity, patience, or service.
An unfamiliar idea isn't better merely because it's new. Test the familiar and the new by the text, and explain why your conclusion follows. Humility leaves us willing to learn while keeping our responsibility to ask for good biblical support. It isn't a demand to accept every new interpretation or to accuse careful readers of resisting Christ simply because they ask for biblical support.
Name what you're practicing
Name something you're learning and what in Scripture has helped you understand it. Then identify a responsibility that ought to change because of that understanding. Keeping those two things together helps growth become more honest than collecting fresh language about discipleship. A disciple's growth becomes easier to examine when the change is concrete.
Practice may start with a small action you can actually carry out. Listen before answering, or prepare for the conversation you've been avoiding. Let the response fit the instruction and the real need, instead of choosing a dramatic gesture mainly because it feels like a new beginning. Review the result honestly and make a suitable adjustment. A small faithful response can be more useful than a sweeping promise that ignores your circumstances. At the same time, don't use gradual growth as permission to continue a wrong you already know needs to stop. Try describing the change to someone who knows you well. They may notice whether the action addresses the actual difficulty or simply substitutes a more pleasant activity. If your problem is avoiding necessary truth, an additional study hour may not replace the conversation that needs to happen. Let the practice remain connected to the duty.
Share the learning honestly
Hebrews 3:12–13 calls Christians to encourage one another against the hardening that sin's deceit can bring. A trusted person can help us hear an excuse we've repeated often enough to believe. Shared learning gives needed questions room to be asked. Companionship can help us notice an excuse we would otherwise repeat alone. A trusted believer may ask a useful question, explain a passage, or show through experience how obedience fits a difficult situation.
Invite the kind of conversation that can include correction. Ask what another person has learned, and let them ask about the conduct you hope to change. Keep confidences and don't turn the gathering into a contest about who has the most impressive account of growth. Protect appropriate confidences. The purpose is to help one another follow Christ, not to build a circle that assigns spiritual status through impressive reports of personal change.
Give faithful growth time
Second Peter 3:18 calls us to keep growing in Christ's grace and knowledge. Some understanding needs repeated study, and some practices need time to become dependable. Patience lets us continue the work without pretending that a strong first feeling has completed it. We shouldn't expect an unexplained moment of transformation to take the place of responding to instruction and carrying out our duties.
We can learn through difficulty without claiming to know why every hardship occurred. Keep turning toward the Lord in prayer and receiving the direction he has revealed. If a method isn't helping, reconsider it; if a sin is clear, don't postpone repentance while waiting for a better method. Keep praying, studying, receiving encouragement, and acting on what is clear. The aim isn't an impressive story about your spiritual development. It is a faithful life in which Christ's teaching increasingly governs what you think, say, and do. Patience should also include realistic expectations about another person's response. Your growth doesn't give you control of their decisions. You can become a more careful listener or a more truthful speaker while a relationship remains difficult. Evaluate whether you are obeying Christ rather than requiring everyone around you to change as proof that your effort has mattered.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What am I learning that needs to change a specific choice?
- 02Who can help me examine the excuses I might overlook alone?
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