Discipleship

Tonight I will simply quote a few excerpts from The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, which I am still reading (and enjoying!). These are from chapter 8, On Being a Student, or Disciple, of Jesus.

It is with this entire context [all of our life in apprenticeship to Jesus] that we most richly and accurately speak of "learning from him how to lead my life as he would lead my life if he were I." (p285)

Once you stop to think about it, you can see that not to find your job to be a primary place of discipleship is to automatically exclude a major part, if not most, of your waking hours from life with him. (p285)
And to repeat the crucial point, if we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of our waking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives. (287)

Eternity is not something waiting to happen, something that will commence later. It is now here. Time runs its course within eternity. (288)

Practically speaking...

... practical, experimental steps seem to be lacking... [discipleship] remains only a distant, if beautiful, ideal. (291)
... what exactly would one do who didn't intend to go into "full-time Christian service" but still wanted to be a disciple...?

"Clarity about the bargain" - to paraphrase: we "count the cost" and realize that we have found an incredible bargain in this kingdom! (293)

"What we should do":
"Ask "

The rule of the kingdom is to ask (295)

"Dwell, reside, in His Words"

He always sees clearly what is at issue. We rarely do (297)

"Now Decide: The power of Decision and Intention"

Here Willard quotes William Law:
"It was this general intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety... And if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it."