Becoming More Like Jesus: Stop Trying, Start Trainingنموونە

Today, we will consider the second of four ways the Holy Spirit invites us to explore as we seek to become more like Jesus. The movement from isolation to community.

Henri Nouwen once wrote, "Discipline is the other side of discipleship. Discipleship without discipline is like waiting to run in the marathon without ever practicing. Discipline without discipleship is like always practicing for the marathon but never participating. It is important, however, to realize that discipline in the spiritual life is not the same as discipline in sports. Discipline in sports is the concentrated effort to master the body so that it can obey the mind better. Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance."

Continuing with Nouwen's illustration of running a marathon, imagine for a moment that you and I set a goal of completing a marathon within the next twelve months.

Now imagine that we decided to go for our first training run tomorrow morning. What would happen if we set out to run the entire 26.2 miles on day one? Well, even if we have been running a few miles each week, regardless of how hard we might try to complete all twenty-six miles, we will likely only make it about four to five miles before collapsing. Why? Because on day one of our training, we have not yet become the kind of person who can run a full marathon regardless of how hard we might try.

To accomplish our goal of running a marathon in the next twelve months, we will need to enter into a training program where we slowly increase our running mileage each week until we can complete a twenty-mile run. Finally, after several months of training, we will have the necessary conditioning and confidence to sign up for and complete a marathon.

Training for a marathon is a lengthy and often grueling process that is rarely, if ever, done alone in isolation. Instead, new runners are encouraged to join a group of more experienced runners who have already completed a marathon and know what it takes to persevere on the hard days when you don't feel like getting out of bed.

With that said, what can we learn from the process of training for a marathon that can help us as we seek to become more like Jesus?

In isolation, trying really hard on our own willpower to do what Jesus did will, more often than not, lead to giving in to the temptation of sin. In this place, shame and guilt feel all-consuming, leaving us in a hopeless state, convinced that we will never change.

In contrast, training in godliness is done in community under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Practicing community is the intentional step of coming together in the presence of others to seek the presence of God as the body of Christ. Community is where we can bring the transformation that God is doing in our lives in solitude out into the open to be refined and used by God to glorify His name. In community, God is calling each of us as His followers, to bring our weaknesses, our lack of willpower to change, and our sins out of the darkness and into the light.