Can We Be Dedicated to 5?

Can we be dedicated to prayer?

Can we be dedicated to eating and drinking the life of Jesus?

Can we be dedicated to drenching our minds in Scripture?

Can we be dedicated to serving the less fortunate?

Can we be dedicated to silence and solitude?

This fall LivingZugos.com will be enthusiastically committed to providing creative experiments in these 5 essential disciplines. I really believe if we practice these at least as much as we eat ice cream, play tennis and jog around the block we will, by the Spirit of Jesus be more and more transformed into His glorious image. The World is waiting for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. May we start to show up and make a difference in the name of Jesus.

Can we be dedicated to these disciplines? Is it too hard? Is it to crazy to ask that we put these disciplines into practice? Could a suburban group of people become disciples of Jesus and mean it? Would we be ashamed? Would we only talk about it with each other? Or could we share our lives with others who are desperately searching for something real and significant?

I wonder what would happen?

Prayer in the Middle of the Night

Galatians 2.20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Carrying your cross is not an easy thing. It can be painful. Galatian 2.20 is one of my favorite sayings of Paul. It says so clearly what happens when we submit our bodies to the cross; we slowly transform into the image of Jesus. Of course the whole question of how do I submit my body to a cross that is not literal may and should arise. That is what this blog is all about. It is about thinking creatively about ways we can deny our pleasures/passions/desires/flesh/self for the sake of Jesus.  So I have a great spiritual experiment for all of us to try this week.

Experiment 009: Prayer in the Middle of the Night (Approximately 2:20 am)

One night this week before you go to bed set your alarm clock to 2:20 am. The reason you set it for 2:20 am is to remind you to pray what Paul was saying in Galatians 2.20. So how is this taking up your cross? Well, your body at 2:20 am wants nothing else but sleep. So, when you wake up and get out of bed and get on your knees and begin praying, you are asking God to help you identify with the death of Jesus on the cross. It is a way of saying to God, "I am willing to give of my self to your cause, I am asking for you to change me Jesus." It is a way that you let God know that you are serious about following Him, your faith is more than words, it's acting and moving.

We don't possess the power to change ourselves into the image of Jesus; only the Spirit can do that. But we do have a little power in us to direct and say what we will do with our bodies. That means everything from sitting my butt in a chair and reading the gospel stories, using my feet to walk around downtown Dallas and pass out food and offer prayer to anyone who needs it, or using my mind and mouth to meditate on a scripture. Our body is what we have control over and this is what Jesus wants us to nail to the cross.

So, wake up at 2:20 am one night this week and make your prayer something like this: "Jesus, thank you for showing me how to die. I am asking you to help me crucify my flesh this very moment. Please transform my selfish heart into a more loving and selfless heart. Please come and drive out my old life and replace it with yours. Live in me Jesus. Show me how to live out your faith in my world. Thank you for forgiving me and now please free me!"

Then you can hop back in bed and have a good night's rest. Remember spiritual disciplines are not heroic; you don't have to stay up all night trying to prove something to God. You just simply talk with Him for a few minutes and then allow his Spirit to do the rest! I hope you have a great time with this experiment this week! I would love to hear how it goes.

Seek the Kingdom,
Jon

What It Means To Be A Disciple of Jesus

I  have the opportunity to speak at Four Corners Church on Sunday July 6. There will be two services one at 9 am and the other at 10:45 am.  I will be speaking on "What It Means to Be A Disciple of Jesus." I am really excited about this sermon and the implications it has on our lives.   

We will be journeying through Luke 14.25-35. In these eleven verses Jesus spells out what it means to be a disciple. They are hard and difficult words, but we need to be challenged and hear His call to "follow me." 

The Need for Speed

I once heard Dallas Willard say, "You must relentlessly remove hurry from your life." He went on to say this is one of the hidden hazards to our spiritual formation into Christlikeness. Hurry it seems, is certainly not as overtly evil as sexual lust or greed, but it lies at the surface of our lives and devours any kind of meaningful time with Jesus. We are always in a hurry. I am always in a hurry. Therefore being meaningfully present with Jesus is difficult. I am trying to squeeze one more page of my book before I get ready to go to work, or just fifteen more minutes of sleep before church. We squeeze and we squish, and now to make it anywhere on time we have to hurry because we were hurrying. It is a vicious cycle!

Why is a lifestyle of hurry so hazardous to our discipleship? Because it bleeds over into our time with Jesus and it rips us out of God's kingdom, thus we cannot fully seek it.

So a couple of years ago I began to get serious about thinking of ways I could practically take steps toward eliminating hurry from my life. The first I employed was driving the speed limit. One of the hard lessons I had to learn was, my car is not a time machine. It's funny, but how we drive our cars can be a reflection of what's going on in our minds. Are we angry, calm, worried, distracted, or in a hurry? If we are in a hurry our speedometer will be a good indicator. Have you ever noticed though, that you are not in any particular time-crunch but you are still driving fast? You may be cutting in and out of traffic, trying to beat a yellow light, rolling slowly through a stop sign or cutting someone off so you can advance further on the highway. We are so used to being in a hurry that now it is just what we do. Getting from point A to point B in the quickest possible time is the sole objective.

So driving the speed limit for a lot of us will be a crucifixion of our old nature that loves to hurry. I have found that a quiet car traveling the speed limit can be one of the greatest opportunities for prayer, silence and meditation.

So our experiment this week is to drive the speed limit one day this week.

Experiment 007: Crucifying Hurry

Now think about it, once you drive the speed limit you don't have to worry about getting ahead of the next car in front of you, making a red light, looking intently for cops on the horizon as you speed, or ride the bumper of the car in front of you to make a point. This will cut down on hurry and worry, which are big killers in discipleship. Perhaps you will feel a calming peace as you drive and enjoy it so thoroughly that you decide to drive the speed limit everyday.

I hope you enjoy this week's experiment and feel Jesus riding shot gun with you as he molds and shapes you into His image. Let go of hurry. Crucify yourself by driving the speed limit. It should hurt and that's a good thing!

Seek the Kingdom at all Cost,
Jon

Welcome & Introduction

This blog is all about taking Jesus seriously.  It's so easy to go to church and tip the preacher and be done. It seems there is (at least from where i am from) a lot of frustration with Christianity and church.  My goal is just to provide practical applications for Christians who really want to become like Jesus.  We are tired of quick fixes, 7 steps to whatever and church hopping. We need a place to really learn and live with Jesus. And i believe that turns out to be right where we are.  So, hopefully this blog can at least help us move in the right direction. 

You can expect a new experiment every week (probably Monday or Tuesday.) I will call them experiments but my hope is they will become disciplines.  The goal is to try an experiment every week, and if it really fits your station of life, then make it a discipline.  Disciplines help us follow Jesus. Disciplines are not righteousness, but wisdom (Dallas Willard). Jesus said, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart" (Matt 11:28-30).  So this is how we learn from Jesus by actually putting into practice what He teaches in the gospels.  

It would be great to get feedback going from people and see how the experiments are going.  Tell about your experience in the comments section.  You may want to say, 'that was really great", or 'that sucked!' Either way, lets just talk about it and create some community and help each other on the Jesus Way.  

A disciple is someone who is learning to be, not so much know. We want to be like Jesus, not just know stuff about Him. A disciple of Jesus is someone who has  decided that the most important thing in life is to be with Him learning to be like HIm.

I hope you will journey with us as we journey with Jesus.

Seek the Kingdom,

Jon

P.S. If you would like to be notified by email when the new post is up just let me know and I will add your email address to the automatic blog send list.