Practicing The Way: Be with Jesus; Become like him; Do as he did

Title: Practicing The Way: Be with Jesus; Become like him; Do as he did

Author: John Mark Comer

Copyright: 2024

I usually read 3-4 books at a time, but occasionally one grabs my attention and it becomes my sole focus. This is one of those. Author, pastor, and spiritual director John Mark Comer in his most recent book, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus; Become like Him; Do as He did, offers a refreshingly insightful, theologically rich, and culturally relevant look at the interior life of a follower of Christ.

In the opening pages, Comer states his case: My thesis is simple: Transformation is possible if we are willing to arrange our lives around the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did, which will open our lives to God’s power to change. Said another way, we can be transformed if we are willing to apprentice ourselves to Jesus. And then from there he provides the pathway, culminating with guidance in how to craft your own Rule of Life.

Check out these Book Notes to see why you want to make this your next read.

Chuck Olson
Founder | Lead With Your Life

Book Description:
We are constantly being formed by the world around us. To be formed by Jesus will require us to become his apprentice.

To live by what the first Christian disciples called a Rule of Life—a set of practices and relational rhythms that slow us down and open up space in our daily lives for God to do what only God can do—transforms the deepest parts of us to become like him.

This introduction to spiritual formation is full of John Mark Comer’s trademark mix of theological substance and cultural insight as well as practical wisdom on developing your own Rule of Life.

These ancient practices have much to offer us. By learning to rearrange our days, we can follow the Way of Jesus. We can be with him. Become like him. And do as he did.

Book Quotes:
For those of us who desire to follow Jesus, here is the reality we must turn and face: If we’re not being intentionally formed by Jesus himself, then it’s highly likely we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something else. LOCATION: 172

The deeper question here is, In whom are you trusting? Who (or what) do you put your faith in to show you the way to the life you desire? It’s my conviction that contrary to what we hear, living by faith isn’t a Christian thing or even a religious thing; it’s a human thing—we all live by faith. LOCATION: 175

There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve. LOCATION: 205

Contrary to what many assume, Jesus did not invite people to convert to Christianity. He didn’t even call people to become Christians (keep reading…); he invited people to apprentice under him into a whole new way of living. To be transformed. LOCATION: 222

My thesis is simple: Transformation is possible if we are willing to arrange our lives around the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did, which will open our lives to God’s power to change. Said another way, we can be transformed if we are willing to apprentice ourselves to Jesus. LOCATION: 224

Discipleship (or, as I’m about to relabel it, apprenticeship) was the pinnacle of the first-century Jewish educational system, much like a PhD or graduate program is in our system today. LOCATION: 313

That was the heart and soul of apprenticeship—being with your master for the purpose of becoming like your master. You would copy his tone of voice, his mannerisms, his figures of speech. You wanted to be him. LOCATION: 343

Yet when you look at Jesus’ model, whether in first-century Israel or twenty-first-century America, or wherever you’re reading this, the meaning of discipleship is perfectly clear: To follow Jesus is to become his apprentice. It’s to organize your entire life around three driving goals: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did. LOCATION: 354

You must choose to accept Jesus’ invitation to a life of apprenticeship. LOCATION: 393

If an apprentice is simply anyone whose ultimate aim is to be with Jesus in order to become like him and live the way Jesus would live if he were in their shoes, then a non-apprentice (whether they identify as an atheist, a devotee of another religion, or even as a Christian) is simply anyone whose ultimate aim in life is anything else. LOCATION: 433

The problem is, in the West, we have created a cultural milieu where you can be a Christian but not an apprentice of Jesus. LOCATION: 436

I could not agree more: The greatest issue facing the world today is not climate change, surveillance capitalism, human rights, or the specter of nuclear war, as utterly crucial as all these are. But can you imagine how many of those problems would effectively be solved overnight if the billions of living humans who identify as Christians all became apprentices of Jesus? If their driving aim was to approach every challenge as Jesus would? LOCATION: 455

You see, Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity; he’s looking for apprentices in the kingdom of God. LOCATION: 458

There is no guarantee that you can be a Christian but not an apprentice of Jesus and still “go to heaven when you die.” Jesus warned us, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” LOCATION: 491

For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you. LOCATION: 512

One way to judge the veracity of your gospel is by this simple acid test: Would someone hearing your gospel naturally conclude that apprenticeship to Jesus is the only fitting response? LOCATION: 536

One way to paraphrase Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” is to say, “Adopt my overall way of life to experience the life I have on offer.” LOCATION: 569

There is a way of life—modeled personally by Jesus himself—that is far beyond anything else on offer in this world. It can open you up to God’s presence and power in ways most people only dream. But it requires you to follow a path marked out for you by Jesus himself. LOCATION: 585

This is the first and most important goal of apprenticeship to Jesus: to be with him, to spend every waking moment aware of his presence and attentive to his voice. To cultivate a with-ness to Jesus as the baseline of your entire life. LOCATION: 671

But on this, ancient Christian spirituality and bleeding-edge neuroscience agree: The mind can be retrained. Re-formed. Whether you call this process neuroplasticity or “the practice of the presence of God,” the powerful truth still stands: Our minds do not have to live in a negative spiral; they can be retrained to “abide”—to live in the presence of God. LOCATION: 771

What Willard and all these spiritual masters of the Way are saying is that through habit you can co-create with Jesus a mind that is fixed on God all through the day. You can say with the psalmist, “I have set the Lord always before me.” Or with Paul, “Set your minds on things above.” LOCATION: 804

Now, I recognize that turning God into a habit may sound about as inspiring as turning romance or laughter or poetry into a habit. In a culture that equates authenticity with spontaneous emotions, habit is a tough sell. But show me a person’s habits, and I will show you what they are truly most passionate about, most dedicated to, most willing to suffer for, and most in love with. And I will show you who they will become. LOCATION: 816

The capacity to set the heart’s attention on God—so basic to following Jesus—is the very commodity we are losing to the “attention economy,” trading looking for liking and gazing for doomscrolling. But if we can’t pay attention, we can’t pray. LOCATION: 911

It’s not that words in prayer are bad; they aren’t. It’s just that you reach a point in any relationship, but especially with God, where words and even thoughts no longer carry you forward toward intimacy. They bring you so far but not all the way. They may even hold you back. LOCATION: 920

In mindfulness, the goal is simply to be present in the moment; in prayer, it’s to be present to God’s presence in the moment, and, ultimately, present to his love. LOCATION: 928

Prayer—of any kind—will always remain a chore, another task on our religious to-do list, until we come to realize that Jesus himself is our “exceedingly great reward.”That the reward for following Jesus is, well, Jesus. It’s the sheer joy of friendship with him. LOCATION: 967

When you read the four biographies of Jesus in the New Testament, one thing is painfully clear: Jesus’ life template was based on a rhythm of retreat and return, like breathing in and then out. Jesus would retreat: He would slip away from the noise and press of the crowd and find a place where he could pray, alone or sometimes with a few very close friends. He would inhale. Then he would exhale, or return: He would come back to preach and teach and heal and deliver and offer love. LOCATION: 1007

For Jesus, the secret place wasn’t just a place; it was a practice, a habit, a part of his life rhythm. He seemed to have little hiding places all over Israel where he would slip away to pray. LOCATION: 1023

And no matter your personality type, whether you are a thinker or more of a doer, an introvert craving time alone or an extrovert ready to party “all day every day, baby,” this practice is absolutely vital to your spiritual life. Henri Nouwen once said, bluntly but accurately, Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. LOCATION: 1026

So, work with your personality, not against it; tailor your practice to your Myers-Briggs type and stage of life, but find your secret place. Go there as often as you can. Prioritize it. Fall in love with it, with God. Without quiet prayer, your life with God will wither; with it, you will come alive to the greatest joy of life: a familiar friendship to Jesus. LOCATION: 1051

Hurry is, arguably, the number one challenge you will face should you decide to take following Jesus seriously. Like an enemy, it won’t just stand in your way; it will actively fight against you. LOCATION: 1066

We live time-torn lives: We want to be with Jesus, but we just don’t have time to pray. We genuinely desire to grow into people of love, but our to-do lists are too long to make any serious attempt. We know rest is the secret to the spiritual journey, but Sabbath? That’s one-seventh of our lives! And yet we are totally unsatisfied: We feel hurried, anxious, far from God, spiritually shallow, and stuck in our self-defeating habits of behavior. LOCATION: 1073

New York Times columnist David Brooks famously distinguished between “résumé virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” Résumé virtues are what we talk about in life—where we work, what we’ve accomplished, what accolades we’ve received, and so on. Eulogy virtues are what others talk about when we die—namely, the people we were, the fabric that made up our character, and the relationships that defined our sojourn on this earth. LOCATION: 1142

For Jesus, the point of apprenticeship was to be with him for the purpose of becoming like him, which happens through an in-depth process of training. Apprentices of Jesus are those who sign up for this training program, who intentionally arrange their lives around this goal of spiritual growth and maturity. LOCATION: 1155

Here’s the first thing you need to understand about spiritual formation, and it’s key: Spiritual formation isn’t a Christian thing; it’s a human thing. LOCATION: 1161

At the risk of saying it yet again, the question isn’t, Are you being formed? It’s, Who or what are you being formed into? LOCATION: 1166

If spiritual formation is simply the way the human spirit, or self, is formed into a definitive shape (for better or worse), then spiritual formation in the Way of Jesus is how each of us is formed to be like Jesus and, in doing so, to be our deepest, truest self—the self that God had in mind when he willed us into existence before time began. LOCATION: 1205

With that in mind, let me attempt a working definition of spiritual formation in the Way of Jesus: the process of being formed into people of love in Christ. LOCATION: 1212

Formation into the image of Jesus isn’t something we do as much as it’s something that is done to us, by God himself, as we yield to his work of transforming grace. Our job is mostly to make ourselves available. LOCATION: 1241

An apprentice of Jesus is one who has arranged their life around becoming like Jesus, as expressed through their personality, gender, life stage, culture, ethnicity, and so on. But if you had to summarize Christlike character in one word, there would be no competition: love.
LOCATION: 1261

Love is the acid test of spiritual formation. LOCATION: 1263

The single most important question is, Are we becoming more loving? Not, Are we becoming more biblically educated? Or practicing more spiritual disciplines? Or more involved in church? Those are all good things, but not the most important thing. LOCATION: 1264

Formation will happen to you, per our earlier argument, with zero conscious decision on your part, but formation into a person of love in Christ will not. That you must choose, and keep choosing, day after day. It will require an intentionality. You will have to apprentice under Jesus and follow his process of training. LOCATION: 1332

This isn’t to negate the role of self-effort: Self-effort is key to spiritual formation. There is a synergistic relationship between our spirits, or willpower, and God’s Spirit, or power. Self-effort and grace are partners, not competitors locked in a tug-of-war for glory. But the main function of self-effort in our formation is to do what we can do—make space to surrender to God via the practices of Jesus—so God can do what we can’t do: heal, liberate, and transform us into people of love. LOCATION: 1391

Miracles, emotional breakthroughs, and profound moments of radical change do happen, and need to happen, but they are not the daily path of discipleship. Like growth spurts or invasive surgeries in a child or adolescent, they are an essential part of our development as persons, but most of our growth is a slow, incremental but noticeable maturation into adulthood. LOCATION: 1440

The New Testament writers speak of sin as not just an action, but also a condition—of being in sin. We screw up, we offend, we hurt, we betray, we forget, we say things we regret. “To err is human.” Calling people “sinful” is no more judgmental than a doctor telling a patient they have a liver condition. It’s just honest. LOCATION: 1454

Confession is a core practice of the Way, and contrary to what many think, it’s not at all about beating yourself up in public. It’s about courageously naming your woundedness and wickedness in the presence of loving community as you journey together toward wholeness. It’s about not only the confession of sin but also the confession of what is true—who you are, who Christ is, and who you truly are in Christ. It’s about coming out of hiding into acceptance, leaving behind all shame. LOCATION: 1531

Synopsis: We are little more than the cumulative effect of our regular habits. What we repeatedly do, we become. LOCATION: 1580

The things we do, do something to us; they get into the core of our being and shape our loves and longings. LOCATION: 1581

As disciples of Jesus, we must carefully discern the ways that we’ve been formed (or malformed)—not by the kingdom but by our last names, our family lines, our political tribes, or our zip codes. LOCATION: 1593

So, let’s sharpen the focus on this idea of practice and give it more of an edge: What I mean by practice is more accurately the practices of Jesus, also known as the spiritual disciplines. These are essentially activities we undertake as disciples of Jesus that re-habituate the automatic responses of sin in our bodies and replace them with the intuitions of the Spirit. They are attempts to copy the example of Jesus’ lifestyle, in the hope of experiencing his life—the life we crave in the marrow of our bones. LOCATION: 1700

You can’t follow Jesus alone. Not “shouldn’t”; can’t. It’s not even an option. Jesus didn’t have a disciple; he had disciples, plural. He called people to apprentice under him in community.
LOCATION: 1716

As we wait for this unveiling, it’s vital that we participate in the “now and not yet” iteration of Jesus’ family, the church, which is both beautiful and deeply flawed. LOCATION: 1729

Now I’m much more concerned with the culture of a church. Whether there are thousands of people around a stage or ten or fifteen around a table, whether they are worshipping to modern rock ballads or quietly reading ancient prayers, I’m interested in this question: Does the community call people up to a higher level of apprenticeship? Or does it devolve to the lowest common denominator of maturity (or immaturity)? LOCATION: 1734

Yes, we have a part to play in our formation, alongside God. But this partnership is not fifty-fifty. I don’t have an accurate breakdown, but let’s just say, he does all the heavy lifting. It is his power—his alone—that can change, heal, fix, and renew the most damaged corners of our souls. LOCATION: 1752

You will never work harder for anything in your life than Christlike character, and nothing else will ever feel like such an unearned gift. This is a paradox you simply have to experience for yourself. LOCATION: 1756

One final thought none of us want to hear: The most difficult moments in our lives—the ones we fear and avoid at all costs—are our crucibles. They have the most potential to forge our souls into the shape of Jesus. LOCATION: 1775

It’s the very things we run from, avoid at all costs, dread, medicate, and deny that hold the secret to our liberation. These unhappy times of great emotional pain, in a beautifully redemptive turn, have the potential—if we open to God in them—to transform us into grounded, deeply joyful people. Suffering is sadness leaving the body. LOCATION: 1784

And that’s exactly how Acts reads, as a continuation of Jesus’ work. All the things you read about Jesus doing in Luke—healing the sick, casting out demons, preaching the gospel—you read about his apprentices doing in Acts. LOCATION: 1853

Now, track with me, as this is a very simple idea that’s lost on so many Christians: If you are an apprentice of Jesus, your end goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did. LOCATION: 1871

Willard defined a disciple as someone whose ultimate goal is to live their life the way Jesus would live if he were me. LOCATION: 1879

Translation: Who Jesus was in his time on earth is an advanced version of who we have the potential to become in him. Jesus is the template for you and me to pour our lives into. LOCATION: 1899

Interpretation: Jesus did what he did by drawing on his connection to the capacities of God. My point is: Jesus did miracles not by flexing his God muscles like Thor but by living in reliance on the Spirit’s power. LOCATION: 1922

New Testament scholars debate what exactly Jesus means here by “greater things than these.” But on this they align: Whatever he means by “greater things,” he doesn’t mean lesser things. LOCATION: 1937

I’m just saying that the same power that was on Jesus, and then on Peter, Paul, and the earliest apostles, is now on you and me—or at least is available to you and me as we, like Jesus, surrender to the Father and open ourselves to the Spirit’s promptings. LOCATION: 1941

The gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to all. Through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit, Jesus has saved, is saving, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus, we can enter into this kingdom and into the inner life of God himself. We can receive and give and share in Love Loving. We can be a part of a community that Jesus is, ever so slowly, forming into a radiant new society of peace and justice that one day will co-govern all creation with the Creator, in an eternity of ever-unfolding creativity and growth and joy. And anyone can be a part of this story. LOCATION: 2076

To that end, let me offer five best practices for preaching the gospel in our secular culture…#1 Offer hospitality…#2 Find where God is already working and join him…#3 Bear witness…#4 “Do the stuff”…#5 Live a beautiful life. LOCATION: 2098-2133

But if we curb this impulse of the Spirit deep within our spirits—to go, to preach the gospel, to testify—then we will “quench the Spirit” in ways that will sabotage our formation and suppress our spiritual vitality. Because there is a kind of spiritual law to the universe: To possess God, we must give him away. As the missionary Frank Laubach said it, “I must talk about God, or I cannot keep Him in my mind. I must give Him away in order to have Him.” Otherwise, our faith will devolve to a private, individualized coping therapy and our spirituality will wither on the vine. LOCATION: 2166

Now, Jesus and his original disciples did a lot of signs to demonstrate the kingdom, but there are four we see them do regularly…#1 Healing…#2 Deliverance…#3 Prophecy…#4 Justice. LOCATION: 2194-2242

A growing number of followers of Jesus are coming to see their work not as a J-O-B, but as a “calling” or even a “ministry.” Once you adopt this mindset, it changes everything. As the preeminent preacher Tony Evans put it, “You have not really lived until you have found your God-given ministry. To live without a sense of divine appointment is to simply exist, to be detached from an eternal perspective and, therefore, simply marking time.” LOCATION: 2306

The way we turn our work from “marking time” into “ministry” isn’t by becoming a pastor or starting a nonprofit; it’s by doing whatever we do the way we imagine Jesus would do it if he were us—with skill, diligence, integrity, humility, the kingdom’s ethics, and so on. LOCATION: 2311

Goal #3 may sound at odds with the previous two. Be with Jesus and Become like him can skew a little more inward, but Do as he did is unmistakably outward. And there is a tension, for sure, between “the contemplative life,” as earlier generations called it, and “the active life.” But it’s a healthy tension, a both-and. LOCATION: 2337

For all of us, before we set out on any journey, we need at least two things: (1) a compelling vision of our desired destination, and (2) a plan for how to get there. Nowhere is this more true than in the spiritual life. LOCATION: 2356

Most people have a plan for their money (a budget), a plan for their time (a schedule), and all sorts of plans for their education, career, retirement, family, kid’s soccer team, gym routine, and so on. But very few have a plan to be with Jesus and thoughtfully apprentice under him in such a way that over time they become the people who naturally do and say the kinds of things Jesus said and did. LOCATION: 2358

A Rule of Life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did, as we live in alignment with our deepest desires. It’s a way of intentionally organizing our lives around what matters most: God. LOCATION: 2394

David Brooks once defined commitment as “falling in love with something [or someone] and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters.” That’s what a Rule is—a structure of behavior to support us “when love falters,” to anchor our lives in something deeper than our fleeting emotions and chaotic desires. LOCATION: 2406

The question isn’t, Do you have a Rule of Life? It’s, Do you know what your Rule of Life is? And is it giving you the life you want? Is it working for you or against you? LOCATION: 2424

I love this little saying that comes from the business world: “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting.” I like to apply that maxim not to a widget factory or the bottom line on a spreadsheet but to the health and growth of our souls (or lack thereof). If your emotional life is off kilter, if you feel far from God, stressed, anxious, and chronically mad, and you’re not becoming more of a person of love, then the odds are that something about the system of your life is poorly designed. LOCATION: 2428

Because your life is the by-product of your lifestyle. LOCATION: 2433

The Christian intellectual Andy Crouch beautifully defines a Rule of Life as “a set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives.” LOCATION: 2450

Choose your own constraints, or they will be chosen for you, not by the Spirit of God stirring your own heart toward love, but by a programmer in Silicon Valley working to steal your time and shape your behavior. LOCATION: 2484

I used to weigh potential behaviors with the question, Is this sinful or not? But now that I better understand the gospel and its possibility of “life that is truly life” with Jesus, my new question is, Does this move me toward Jesus or away? LOCATION: 2489

But hear me: A wisely chosen Rule has the potential to enrich your life in ways you can’t possibly imagine. LOCATION: 2498

Four things a good Rule will do for you: #1 It will help you turn vision into reality; #2 It will help you experience peace as you live in alignment with your deepest desires; #3 It will help you live at the right pace; #4 It will help you balance freedom and discipline. LOCATION: 2500-2542

Disciplines are the path, not the destination. LOCATION: 2590

The practices are disciplines based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create time and space for us to access the presence and power of the Spirit and, in doing so, be transformed from the inside out. LOCATION: 2625

A discipline is any activity I can do by direct effort that will eventually enable me to do what I currently cannot do by direct effort. LOCATION: 2629

What drills are to basketball (or scales are to playing the guitar, or a sprint workout is to a half marathon, or shading spheres is to an artist), the practices are to becoming a person of love. We do what we can do—read Scripture, pray, practice Sabbath, eat a meal with community—to be formed into people who can eventually do what we currently cannot do: live and love like Jesus. LOCATION: 2637

Ancient Christians called this “synergy”—working not for God, but with God. LOCATION: 2650

Our part is to slow down, make space, and surrender to God; his part is to transform us—we simply do not have that power. Utilizing the disciplines, we can say with Paul, “God is working in [me], giving [me] the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” LOCATION: 2652

At Practicing the Way, we recommend you design your Rule of Life to integrate the following nine core practices: #1 Sabbath…#2 Solitude…#3 Prayer…#4 Fasting…#5 Scripture…#6 Community…#7 Generosity…#8 Service…#9 Witness. LOCATION: 2687-2803

Most of the great ones of the Way all agree: Solitude is the most foundational of all the practices of Jesus. LOCATION: 2704

Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and, arguably, the single most neglected in the modern Western church. LOCATION: 2739

But we simply are not meant to follow Jesus alone. The radical individualism of Western culture is not only a mental health crisis and growing social catastrophe; it’s a death blow to any kind of serious formation into Christlike love. Because it’s in relationships that we are formed and forged. LOCATION: 2766

And here’s a key truth: Not only does the practice of service have the potential to mend our fractured world; it has the power to mend us. This is one of the most surprising things about the discipline. You think you’re there to help others, but you quickly realize you’re the one being helped. You’re being set free of your ego, your entitlement, your self-obsession. When you serve in the Way of Jesus, the lines blur between servant and served, giver and recipient. LOCATION: 2794

Change is all about consistency over time. Formation is slow, cumulative, and at times monotonous work. In the moment, you often don’t feel like the practices are “doing” all that much to you. They are; it’s just slow and subtle. But the philosopher James K. A. Smith said it well: “Micro-rituals have macro significance.” They add up over time, like compound interest. LOCATION: 2951

One final thing: Following Jesus doesn’t work as a hobby. It’s not an optional extra to the main point of your life—your career, school, family, sports, or whatever “it” is for you. We simply can’t add Jesus to the top of our already overbusy, consumeristic, emotionally unhealthy, hyper-individualistic, digitally distracted, media-saturated, undisciplined modern “life.” LOCATION: 2972

To follow Jesus will require you to leave something behind. Following Jesus always requires you to leave something behind. LOCATION: 3044

History tells us all twelve apostles were martyred for their faith: James was beheaded in Jerusalem by a paranoid politician. Peter was crucified upside down. Mark died in Egypt after being dragged through the streets by horses. Luke was hung in Greece. Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India. Matthew was impaled by a sword in Ethiopia. Paul was likely beheaded. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Their deaths gave life to millions, including you and me. But they still died. LOCATION: 3055

Surrender is the foundation of the spiritual life. One of my favorite definitions of discipleship is “a lifelong process of deepening surrender to Jesus.” This, this alone, is the ground on which a life of apprenticeship to Jesus is built, as Jesus himself said at the end of his Sermon on the Mount: All others are houses built on sand. LOCATION: 3064

An apprentice of Jesus has no other will than the will of God. LOCATION: 3076

When you do the math, you may conclude that, yes, following Jesus will cost you—a lot. But here’s the thing: Not following Jesus will cost you even more. LOCATION: 3103

You must daily hold before your mind and imagination the beauty and possibility of life in the kingdom of God. LOCATION: 3169

When you fall (and again, we all fall), repent, yes, but don’t get sucked into self-recrimination or shame. Fall back on God’s mercy. Let him pick you back up. LOCATION: 3184

To that end, we’ve created a free digital tool for you to design your own Rule of Life. Begin now by going to practicingtheway.org/ruleoflifebuilder. LOCATION: 3274

Note: should you wish to find any quote in its original context, the Kindle “location” is provided after each entry.