PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
1 Corinthians 4:16–17
Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.
CONSIDER THIS
Habits are all the rage right now. The book Atomic Habits by James Clear is one of the bestsellers of our day. Social media is full of habit talk—how to break bad habits, how to start good habits, and how to create habits that help you achieve your goals in life.
Have you ever tried to build a good habit or break a bad one? It’s not easy to learn a new way of doing daily life, especially as we age. But what if the Spirit of the eternal God is living in you, transforming your habits to make you like Jesus? That is a different story.
Our habits add up to our way of life, and if our habits are on point with Jesus, then our way of life will slowly—increasingly—make us like Jesus (1 John 4:17). We’ll embody the virtues of Jesus, evidencing the fruit of the Spirit as we learn to act with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). When Paul tells the Corinthians that Timothy will remind them of his way of life in 1 Corinthians 4:16–17, I believe that Timothy was not only reminding them with words. Timothy was also an example of the way of life of Jesus. He most probably even imitated Paul (v. 16) on his journey to being like Christ.
The earliest followers of Jesus were called, “followers of the Way.” The term could be understood to have different meanings. Jesus called himself the “way and the truth and the life” in John 14:6. In other words, “no one comes to the Father” except through him, the way to God.
But Jesus also had a way of life he taught his disciples. They were his apprentices. Before we came to faith in Jesus we had a former way of life (Gal. 1:14; Eph. 4:22), and now, by grace, we have a new way of life in Christ (1 Cor. 4:17).
This is the point Paul is making in 1 Corinthians 4:17. Timothy is going to remind the Corinthians of Paul’s “way of life in Christ Jesus.” In other words, Paul is living a life of love (Eph. 5:2) in union with Jesus. In fact, Paul will go so far as to say that Jesus is living his life through him (Gal. 2:20). Paul could confidently say that his habits and way of being in the world were to be imitated as he imitated Christ (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1).
In the first few centuries of the church, Christians would be thoroughly discipled to become like Jesus in thought, word, and action. They would be coached, often by mentors, on how to grow in their spiritual union with Jesus. These early believers went into deep training (1 Cor. 9:24–25) to transform how they responded to their experiences in the pagan world with their thoughts, emotions, and bodies. They had to deeply learn a new way of life—to become different people—or they were destined to fall back into their old ways:
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor . . . (Eph. 4:22–25a)
Like us, they had much to unlearn as they learned their new way of life. Their training was a partnership with the indwelling Spirit’s transformation of their heart. By learning new habits such as meeting frequently with other believers, worshiping, praying, visiting the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, maintaining purity, acting truthfully, and much more, they were slowly and thoroughly converted from their pagan ways to a Christlike way of reacting to the world.1
As we practice the way of Jesus, we begin to grow in our desire to be like the one who loves us more than we could imagine. And as we grow in that desire and practice habits of the heart that shape our way of life, Jesus aligns our way of life with his own.
THE PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I am in you and you are in me. Transform me in my inner self, habit of the heart by habit of the heart, until I become like you in every way. Let my way of life be a sign to all those I meet that you live in your people. In Christ Jesus, I pray, amen.
THE QUESTIONS
Is the Lord teaching you new habits of the heart? What are they? Do you feel the Spirit’s help as you progress toward becoming like him?
For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt
NOTES
- For a helpful list of early church discipleship habits, see Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 122–23.
Subscribe to get this in your inbox daily and please share this link with friends.
6 Responses
A Christian lifestyle isn’t a pattern that we learn to follow or a religious program that we regularly attend. It’s moment-by-moment surrender to “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ-followers are called to a Spirit-led way of life that rises far above human habits. The fruit of the Spirit isn’t produced by good habits or self-effort. It flows like rivers of living water from deep within people who let the risen Jesus fully inhabit them. As they constantly submit to Christ living in them, He personally directs their thoughts, words, and actions throughout each day. If churches would begin to train people to continually listen to and obey the risen Jesus (instead of catering to human complacency by conducting comfortable church services) spiritual awakening would become the norm in the body of Christ.
Follow Christ Himself,
Not just sermons
About Him
Or the preachers
Who preach them.
Let Christ Himself
Living in you
Personally lead you
In all you say and do.
–John 17:26.
Much like the first Christians, we too are living in a non-Christianized culture. So now here in the West, the warnings in the NT that document the fact that believers should expect and prepare to suffer for their faith becomes more real to us. As stated in this article, “Like us, they had much to unlearn as they learned their new way of life.” The biggest difference between us and them is that they merely had to unlearn the ways of the unbelieving world. We, on the other hand not only have to avoid the pagan practices of the world, but will have to unlearn some unBiblical church traditions of man that have crept into the church over the previous 1700 years due to Christendom. See, Pagan Christianity, a book authored by Frank Viola and George Barna for more details on this. Attempting to address this issue can bring about suffering for the cause of Christ as well.
My first thought when Dan said, “… they had much to unlearn …” was that we have to unlearn cultural Christianity. I have to unlearn a life of “Christianity”. You expressed it well. Thank you, my brother. I’m going to check out the book.
Well said, surrendering to His will is on going in every moment of our lives. Always seeking His guidance and will in and through ALL things.
Well said, surrendering to His will is on going in every moment of our lives. Always seeking His guidance and will in and through ALL things.