Through The Wilderness: Following Jesus in the 21st Century ~ Marlena Graves

Sharpening perceptions of reality and providing spiritual guidance for those in the crux of wilderness experiences. Substantial spiritual nourishment for those who know or sense that Christ is anything but shallow. Encouraging readers to radically (which to Christ is normal) serve God and others. The author is teaching herself and others to read the world through the lens of the gospel and to become active participants in the local and worldwide body of Christ.

Oct 20, 2010

What We Should Be Like As Disciples of Jesus

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.

http://www.renovare.us/WHATWEDO/Training/SpiritualFormationInstitute/tabid/2348/Default.aspx.

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!

2 comments:

Kate Roberts said...: I think one day I might have to go to this :); October 20, 2010 at 3:12 PM
Lyndsey said...: cool! i love dallas willard. i'm resonating with point 6 now.; October 22, 2010 at 7:02 PM

Read Old Books. They Expand Our Souls.

One excellent way to see how much our culture's passing weather patterns have influenced us is to read old books. If you recieve all your information from contemporary writers, Christian or secular, you will never perceive whole concepts that people in other generations could see. (For example, earlier generations of Christians perceived a power in sexual purity that eludes us completely; we can only fall back on "don'ts"). Every Christian should always have at his bedside at least one book that is at least fifty years old--the older the better.

Frederica Matthews-Greene