By Bill Gaultiere © 2011
Discipleship to Jesus changes how we live. We gain a new perspective and new resources—a new life takes over our life. We learn to do whatever we’re doing from within God’s kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy (Romans 14:17).
What does this look like? Dallas Willard says it’s like becoming an apprentice to Jesus. It’s not about being religious—it’s about being with Jesus to become like him, holding his hand and learning from him continually.
Learning from Jesus, the Master, changes everything about our lives because it changes us on the inside. What difference does discipleship to Jesus make in our daily lives? It’s huge!
A Plumber’s Story
I love the way Dallas Willard, my personal mentor, explains the practical life transformation that takes place when we apprentice ourselves to Jesus:
Let’s say I’m a plumber and I’m going to clean out someone’s sewer. How will I do this as Jesus would do it? If you encounter difficulties with the people you’re serving or with the pipe or the machinery, you never fight that battle alone. You invoke the presence of God. You expect to see something happen that is not the result of you.
If you train yourself to thank God when those ‘coincidences’ happen, you’ll see them as patterns in your life. The crucial thing is to be attentive to God’s hand, not to get locked into one-on-one thinking: It’s me and this pipe! Never do that. A person has to train himself to think, Now is the time to rely on God and to praise him for the solution that will come to me. That’s called ‘life in God.’ Training brings you to the point where you don’t have to say, “I have to pay attention!” You routinely think, This is an occasion when God is present. This is a time to pray, to praise. (Quoted in When the Soul Listens by Jan Johnson, p. 145.)
It’s Not Just Me and this Pipe!
What has happened for this plumber? God has a solved his problem with the pipe. Yes, but what is far more important is that the plumber has become the kind of person who prays and praises God as he works on broken pipes. That is a miracle because plumbing problems can lead even an expert plumber to become grumpy and irritable! In all the circumstances of his life he knows that the living Christ is with him and so he remains at peace and he is more effective in whatever he is doing because he relies on God’s wisdom and power to help him.
Imagine you being a person like that plumber. Imagine doing your job as Jesus’ apprentice. Imagine doing whatever you’re doing in Jesus’ easy yoke: cooking, caring for your kids, going through your e-mail, driving in traffic, listening to someone who is angry with you, waiting in line at the bank. Doing it all with a smile because Jesus is with you and the two of you are in partnership.
You can learn to live for Jesus. You can be like the man who discovered hidden treasure in a field and joyfully sold everything he had to buy that field. The treasure is knowing Jesus intimately. The field is your life (Matthew 13:44).
More Soul Shepherding
What have a learned from Dallas Willard? A lot! Here are my “Reflections on Dallas Willard’s Ministry to Me.”
How important is it to you to learn to devote your whole life to Jesus? It’s the best life and the easiest life! I my book You Can Live in Jesus’ Easy Yoke I show you how living as Jesus’ apprentice can give you peace in any situation of stress.
Through counseling and spiritual mentoring, seminars and retreats we help pastors, ministry leaders, and other servants of the Lord to live in Jesus’ easy yoke.
Bill Gaultiere, Ph.D. & Kristi Gaultiere, Psy.D. ~ http://www.soulshepherding.org
