Jesus is not a habit or routine or part of life. No, following Jesus is making him the blazing sun at the centre of your life around which everything else orbits. It isn’t about lifestyle tweaks it is about everything being transformed in light of Jesus and his kingdom. Discipleship is to live life following Jesus.
What does your life revolve around? That is the question we need to ask but rarely do. It’s the time of year that we try to start new habits and new routines. For many Christians it’s the time of the year when they resolve to start trying to read the bible through in a year, or to copy Daniel’s 3 times a day prayer routine, or make promises about trying to make it out to the Bible study. None of those things are bad things. But here’s my issue with them, they are peripheral.
They are about shuffling routine and habits about so you can find more time to squeeze in doing something good. It makes reading the Bible and praying on a par with getting fitter, not eating so much fat or promising to let people see all of your face not just the edges around it as you are clued to your phone. It makes following Jesus about peripherals when it isn’t. When we do that we have missed something so fundamental to discipleship that it’s almost unfathomable. And I can’t help wondering if that’s a huge reason for the discipleship deficit we currently face in the west.
Jesus is not a habit or routine or part of life. No, following Jesus is making him the blazing sun at the centre of your life around which everything else orbits.
