What We Should Be Like As Disciples of Jesus

Following Jesus / / 2 Comments
I spent over a week away from technology and immersed in life with many faithful disciples of Jesus at the Renovare Spiritual Formation Institute’s Denver Cohort retreat. I highly recommend applying if you would like to learn better how to be a disciple of Jesus and make disciples as Jesus commands us to do. Words cannot describe my experience. Yet, I’ll throw a few out: refreshing, invigorating, full of grace and truth, walking around in wide-eyed wonder with mouth agape, thankful for God and his Kingdom and his people, overwhelmed with goodness and beauty, full of Jesus, immersed in Trinitarian love and reality. I so appreciated all the teachers (Glandion Carney, Jan Johnson, Keith Matthews, Dallas Willard, Gary Moon) and the hospitality of Pam Stewart and Regina Moon. And I appreciate all the “teachers” in the form of brothers and sisters from throughout the United States and two other continents. There are people, all over the Kingdom of God, that live like Jesus. And I am so thankful that I spent a solid week with some of them in community and will do so again.
Here I will include the link and some notes from one of Dallas Willard’s talks.
Based on the Sermon On The Mount we realize that trust in Jesus will make us into the kind of persons who:

1. Live lives free of contempt and anger (Matthew 5:21-26).

2. Live lives free from the domination of sexual lust and disgust .

3. Live lives free of the desire to dominate and control verbally (Matthew 5:33-37).

4. Live lives free from grudges and ‘fairness’ and paying back evil.

5. Live lives where we are able to love our enemies (for most of us, difficult people) and those who 
    curse us  (Matthew 5:43-48).

6. Live lives where we do not perform for human credit (Matthew 6:1-18).

7. Live lives where we do not trust in physical substances (ex. money – Matthew 6:19-34).

8. Live lives where we do not manage others by condemnation or what Dallas Willard calls  
    condemnation engineering  (Matthew 7:1-2).

Through the grace of God, lives and love in the Christian community, and with practice of the spiritual disciplines, we can over time become such people. I have many more notes from the institute retreat, but these are the first I thought I’d share. Blessings and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

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