Chapter 9. A CURRICULUM FOR CHRISTLIKENESS
The Course of Studies in the Master Class
What practical things can be taught to make disciples.
Obedience and Abundance: Inseparable Aspects of the Same Life. “And there still are those today for whom faith in Christ progressively modulates into both obedience and abundance. I meet such people. But, not very many. The usual Christian experience does not progress in that way. And it is mainly because individuals are rarely offered any effective guidance into the inner substance of the path laid down by Jesus in his teachings and example.”
Where Are the Training Programs. The church has no programs designed to teach people how to follow what Jesus has told us.
The Necessity of a Curriculum for Christlikeness.
Not Just More Information.
Getting the Answers Right—And Believing Them. “So, to drive home the crucial point, a great deal of what goes into “training them [us] to do everything I said” consists simply in bringing people to believe with their whole being the information they already have as a result of their initial confidence in Jesus—even if that initial confidence was only the confidence of desperation.”
The Disciple Is Not Perfect—Yet. “In order to become a disciple of Jesus, then, one must believe in him. In order to develop as his disciple one must progressively come to believe what he knew to be so. To enter his kingdom, we believe in him. To be at home in his kingdom, learning to reign with him there, we must share his beliefs.” WE have to talk about the gospel about Jesus and the gospel of Jesus.
Getting Clear on Objectives
Four Things We Must Not Take As Primary Objectives.
- External conformity to the wording of Jesus’ teaching about actions in specific contexts.
- Profession of perfectly correct doctrine.
- Faithfulness to the activities of a church.
- Various spiritualities.
The Two Primary Objectives of the Course of Training.
- “The first objective is to bring apprentices to the point where they dearly love and constantly delight in that “heavenly Father” made real to earth in Jesus and are quite certain that there is no “catch,” no limit, to the goodness of his intentions or to his power to carry them out.”
- “The second primary objective of a curriculum for Christlikeness is to remove our automatic responses against the kingdom of God, to free the apprentices of domination, of “enslavement” (John 8:34; Rom. 6:6), to their old habitual patterns of thought, feeling, and action.”
Enthralling the Mind with God
Turning the Mind Toward God. “If anyone is to love God and have his or her life filled with that love, God in his glorious reality must be brought before the mind and kept there in such a way that the mind takes root and stays fixed there.” The question is how do we do that?
Our Mind and Our Choices. “ that one main part, and by far the most fundamental, is to form the insights and habits of the student’s mind so that it stays directed toward God. When this is adequately done, a full heart of love will go out toward God, and joy and obedience will flood the life.”
The Three Areas of Necessary Intellectual Clarity.
- God’s creation
- God’s public acts during history
- Individual experiences of God
1. "God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth” The disciple must be open to the acts of God in creation.
Our Seeing and Teaching Must Be Thorough and Completely Honest. “… dealing honestly with the questions that come up is the only path to a robust and healthy faith.”
Theology Tested by the Love of God. “The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and strength? If the thoughtful, honest answer is; “Not really,” then we need to look elsewhere or deeper.”
Two Harmful Myths. 1. God as creator has been refuted by modern science. 2. You have to be a technical scholar to deal effectively of God as creator. “The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and strength? If the thoughtful, honest answer is; “Not really,” then we need to look elsewhere or deeper.”
2. The God of Jesus and His People. God has always shown his love for humans by being in relationship with them.
“Knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Christ. “The key, then, to loving God is to see Jesus, to hold him before the mind with as much fullness and clarity as possible. It is to adore him. For purposes of training disciples, we should divide this into four main aspects.”
- Teach his power as he lived as a human.
- His execution as a common criminal for us.
- The reality of Jesus risen.
- Jesus is the master of creation.
3. God’s Hand Seen Through the Events of the Disciple’s Life. As disciples, we must be sure that God intends good for us, in spite of or circumstances.
Honoring Father and Mother: A Vital Need.
Acquiring the Habits of Goodness
Breaking the Bondage to the “Sin in Our Body.” We have to bread the patterns of wrongdoing that govern or lives.
What the “sin in Our Members” Is. Our behavior is not driven by some cosmic force. It is a product of our habits, and those can be broken. “the replacement of habits remains absolutely essential to anyone who is to “hear and do” and thus build his or her house on the rock. Without it, direct efforts in the moment of action to do what is right will seldom succeed.”
A Matter of What Is “in” Us. “… nothing has power to tempt me or move me to wrong action that I have not given power by what I permit to be in me. And the most spiritually dangerous things in me are the little habits of thought, feeling, and action that I regard as “normal” because “everyone is like that” and it is “only human.”
The Training Will Not Be Done for Us.
The Threefold Dynamic
The “Golden Triangle” of Spiritual Growth. Top of the triangle is the work of the Holy Spirit.“The action of the Spirit must be accompanied by our response, which, as we have seen, cannot be carried out by anyone other than ourselves”
The Indispensable Role of Ordinary Event: “Tests”. One bottom corner of the triangle is what happens in our daily lives. “So it is absolutely essential to our growth into the “mind” of Jesus that we accept the “trials” of ordinary existence as the place where we are to experience and find the reign of God-with-us as actual reality.”
We Are Not Told Precisely How to Develop Kingdom Habits.
And Yet Everyone Knows. “What is it about a practice that makes it a spiritual discipline? Well, they are, first of all, disciplines. A discipline is any activity within our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.”
Centrality of Our Bodies.
Modeled on Jesus Himself. “So, basically, to put off the old person and put on the new we only follow Jesus into the activities that he engaged in to nurture his own life in relation to the Father.”
Doing the Same Thing Differently. Intensity is crucial for making progress.
Planned Disciplines To Put on New Heart.
What Spiritual Disciples Are.
Some Specific Disciplines in the Curriculum. “… that a small number of them are absolutely central to spiritual growth. They must form a part of the foundation of our whole-life plan for growth as apprentices of Jesus. These are, on the side of abstinence, solitude and silence and, on the side of positive engagement, study and worship.”
—Two Disciplines of abstinence: solitude and silence. “Pascal insightfully remarks, ‘I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own room.’ ” How to be alone and silent—have nothing to do.
—Two disciplines of positive engagement: study and worship.
Practical Steps for Attaining the Two Curricular Objectives
An Illustration of Training-to-Do. The teaching cannot be captured by rules. That leads to legalism. You can’ bully others to accept your views.
The Pattern or General Form, of the Teaching. “he pattern has two main elements: (1) Clearly positioning the context before the heavenly Father’s present rule through Jesus and (2) Walking the individual through actual cases in their own lives to give them experience-based understanding and assurance”.
Overview of Progress from Here to Forever
Five Dimensions or Stage of the Eternal Kind of Life.
- Confidence in and reliance up Jesus.
- Desire to be his apprentice.
- Obedience.
- A pervasive inner transformation of the heart and soul.
- Power to work the works of the kingdom.
The Curriculum and the Life of the Church
Such a Curriculum for Christlikeness is Nothing New. These two core disciplines (abstinence and positive engagement) seem radical in todays Christianity. But, they are historically what the great saints have taught and practiced.
Some Practical Points About Implementation —Especially for Pastors. First, before you teach it, make sure you are living it. Second, pay careful attention to the people and discern who is ready.
Quotes from: Dallas Willard. “The Divine Conspiracy.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-divine-conspiracy/id360632495