Become Like Jesus

Jesus promises his particular presence through the Holy Spirit and it is the regenerative work of the Spirit in a believer’s heart, where the Spirit uses truth, relationships, and life experiences to conform every believer more to the image of Christ.

Sources:

• Waterstone Mission Statement: To be a people empowered by the presence of Jesus Christ to proclaim his kingdom and demonstrate his love, justice and mercy to our neighbor.
• Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono

• Top Five New Year’s Resolutions (Today Show):

  5. Keep your car clean
  6. Make your bed
  7. Compliment someone and mean it
  8. Get outside
  9. Schedule more time with friends
• Practicing Transformation: Be with God through spending intentional time in His word and the spiritual practices.
• “It is really pretty simple but deceptive in how profound it is: your life is the byproduct of your lifestyle. By your lifestyle we mean your rituals and routines, the way you spend your time and money, the way you organize your day or your week or your year. Your system is perfectly designed to get the results you are getting.” – John Mark Comer, “Practicing the Way” Vision series, episode 3 sermon, Bridgetown Community Church, 11/19/21.
• “To abide in Christ means to keep up a habit of constant close communion with him – to be always leaning on him, resting on him, pouring out our hearts to him, and using him as our fountain of life and strength, as our chief companion and best friend. To have his words abiding in us, is to keep his sayings and precepts continually before our memories and minds, and make them the guide of our actions and the rule of our daily conduct and behavior.” – J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St John, volume 3, 104.

• “None of us is so rushed that it would be impossible to allow for even ten minutes in the day, in the morning or the evening, in which arrangements could be made for silence, in order to place oneself into the presence of Eternity, allow it to speak, question it, and thereby look deep within and far beyond oneself… Whoever earnestly works at this day by day will be overwhelmed by the golden harvest of the fruit of those times.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian Teachings on the Practice of Prayer, ed. Lorraine Kisly, 201.

• Spend time with God:
  • “Read Scripture” app from the BibleProject.com
  • The Songs of Jesus by Timothy and Kathy Keller
  • “Lectio 365” app from 24-7prayer.com
• “Christian worship is essential counter formation to those rival liturgies we are often immersed in, cultural practices that covertly capture our loves and longings, mis-calibrating them, and orienting us to rival visions of the good life.” – James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, 25
• Practicing Transformation: Connect with others through participating in corporate worship and engaging discipleship communities.
• “The triune God is an ecstatic God: he is not a God who hoards his life, but one who gives it away, as he would show in that supreme moment of his self-revelation on the cross. The Father finds his very identity in giving his life and being to the Son; and the Son images his Father in sharing his life with us through the Spirit.” – Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity, 45.
• Practicing Transformation: Live like Jesus through displaying the love of Jesus in everyday interactions and unexpected circumstances.

• “A strange chemistry of Providence is this, to extract so great a good as the enlargement of the gospel out of so great an evil as the confinement of the apostle.” – Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, comment on Philippians 1:12.