[DISCIPLESHIP] 13. The Role of Beauty in Discipleship, Part 2
Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about the quiet role of beauty in discipleship. "Often, we don't see and feel the reality of God's created order, because we've not cultivated an eye for beauty. And that it gives everything a kind of a frivolity. D.C Shindler describes it, ‘We don't feel the weightiness or givenness of things. There's a kind of a lightness of being.’ The loss of a sense of reality is just all over; it’s a subtle way that the culture is impacting the church. Even the church doesn't feel the weight of beauty, the weight of goodness." "God, who is beautiful, has created a creation that reflects his beauty and has made me to see it. As we enter into this world that he's made, we experience beauty too." "I was leading a cohort for a group of leaders who were prayer resistant, and one of the leaders who has since become a good friend said, ‘I'm only here because I'm paid to be here.’ And that was an experience of beauty for me. I actually got excited. It was real. I have longed for more reality in the church because the temptation to pretense in religious things is so powerful."
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[DISCIPLESHIP] 12. The Role of Beauty in Discipleship, Part 1
Paul, Jon, Adam, and Liz continue their conversation about discipleship, looking at the role of beauty. "Our first tagline at seeJesus was 'helping people see the beauty of Jesus,' and people really struggled to understand what we did. I thought that was because the beauty of Jesus is hard for people grasp if they don’t understand the person of Jesus. But I've come to realize, that the church is actually weak on beauty itself…" "Seeing beauty requires attentiveness. But when you pursue it directly, you end up with a kind of a fake beauty or a hunt for emotional experiences." "They say if you can get a kid excited about reading, then you’ve opened up a world to them for life. I’ve seen a similar dynamic in discipleship, where if you get someone excited about Jesus and the beauty of Jesus, then discipleship is downhill, not uphill. Beauty puts energy into obedience."
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[DISCIPLESHIP] 11. Prayer and Love
Paul, Adam, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about discipleship, considering how learning to pray is related to learning to love. "You could look at prayer kind of like an onion, where the outer layer might be prayer and the next layer is being faithful in prayer, and then all of a sudden you're discovering the Spirit at work. Things are happening that weren't in your categories. And there's work in your heart that's beginning to happen." "You're beginning to enter the mind of Christ. You're living in this world of love. You're getting to know God." "And then you find yourself praying all the time. And pretty soon, all these things become habits, which makes sense of Paul's phrase, to be in step with the Spirit. So it's this life of continuous prayer to the Heavenly Father, where you’re waiting on the Spirit and he's constantly making Jesus present."
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[DISCIPLESHIP] 10. The Will is Where the Interior and Exterior Meet
Paul, Adam, and Liz continue their conversation about discipleship, looking at the role of the will. "Life is filled with these polarities: Grace or truth? Do I leave space, or do I draw near? At the crux is my communion with my Heavenly Father. Discipleship puts these decisions of daily life under a magnifying glass." "Your will is controlled by what you love, and the grip of that love is so powerful that you often don't even realize you're exercising your will." "When you slow down, you begin to uncover your will. You're really beginning to unmask your heart to yourself…. De-centering yourself and connecting that self with God is what the work of discipleship is. That’s why teaching someone to pray is the foundational work of discipleship."
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[DISCIPLESHIP] 9. Learning to Pray is Learning to Love
Paul and Liz continue this new series with Adam Barker, Director of A Praying Life. "You can try to teach someone to love and give them all the pieces, but if they don't love from the heart, nothing will happen…. Jesus is driving at creating a community of God followers around him, his life and his teaching. He's driving for perfection. That’s why things like the Sermon on the Mount are really important, because it's a sermon on the perfect Christian." "When I'm teaching people to pray, I'm teaching them to love, and if they don't understand that, their praying life will become self-centered." "Don't misunderstand me – Jesus knows you won’t be perfect this side of heaven, but he's driving after it nonetheless. He's driving for this beauty of Christ to be formed in us. And without that passion for change, without the goal of the church looking like Jesus, then discipleship just gets boring. But if people are really changing, if they're really learning to love their wife or their husband in a difficult marriage, then they're on the front lines every day. Discipleship is calling people to a life of love that's honest and compassionate and prayerfully dependent."
In this podcast, Paul E. Miller, author of A Praying Life, invites you into a conversation about Jesus and how he lived as a person. Ministry and conversation partners, Liz Voboril and Jon H., join Paul in exploring the details of Jesus’ earthly life. In attending closely to the cadences of the one person who lived a perfect life, we gain a clearer vision of what it means to be human. Learn more about Paul Miller and his ministry at seejesus.net.
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