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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I pray persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox
MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
Brian encourages support of the 4-Star Christian organization Compassion, which supports children worldwide; see www.compassion.com .
Opening Prayer
Save me from laziness pertaining to spiritual pursuits and virtues. May I above all seek Your will. Inspire me to do all I can to fulfill that will. Where I am not now prepared to fulfill Your desire, prepare me. Where I am not now willing to fulfill Your desire, transform my resistance to joyful, eager readiness. May I never be slothful in my service for You. In the Name of Christ. Amen.
Today's Scripture
16 Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. … 18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
*Matthew 28.16, 18-20 (NLT)
Spiritual Teaching
Said a disappointed visitor, "Why has my stay here yielded no fruit?"
"Could it be because you lacked the courage to shake the tree?" said the Master benignly.
*Anthony de Mello. One Minute Wisdom.
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"Superficiality is the curse of our age…. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
*Richard Foster. Celebration of Discipline.
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Dallas Willard, in The Great Omission, writes of the popular heresy among evangelicals, which says, “I can accept Jesus as Savior, but I don't need to take obeying Him seriously:
This 'heresy' has created the impression that it is quite reasonable to be a "vampire Christian." One in effect says to Jesus: "I'd like a little of your blood, please. But I don't care to be your student or have your character. In fact, won't you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I'll see you in heaven." But can we really imagine that this is an approach that Jesus finds acceptable?
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St. Francis of Assisi is a “victim” of what Lawrence S. Cunningham, in Francis of Assisi, terms “spirituality lite.” Glorification of great Christians is often sentimental and not realistic. Like to this is how James Martin sees many persons treating the image of St. Francis: “[A]s a sort of well-meaning hippie who talked to birds” (My Life with the Saints).
Actually, the life of St. Francis, like all great Christians, shows us all but spirituality lite. Rather, we find real men and women who struggled like we do, confronted the powers that were inwardly and outwardly, and demonstrated an obedience and spiritual devotion worthy of our emulation. In other words, they proved to be disciples of Jesus Christ. They took obeying Jesus seriously.
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What afflicts the churches is spirituality lite. This is a commercial brand of so-called spirituality that invests in the God-bank to get a fair return. The focus is on, “What can God do for me?,” not, “What can I do for God?”
Frankly, most popular Christianity – if such is not a contradiction in terms – amounts to little more than a group of clan-like folk who refuse to shake the tree, but they want to gulp down the fruit.
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The early followers of Jesus were disciples; that is, learners. They were under the direct training of Jesus. They were apprentices of Christ, the Master.
Our Matthew passage shows us Jesus directing his learners to create other learners, other doers. He did not say, “Make good persons.” Or, “Make Christians.” Or, “Get persons ready for a heaven in the sweet by-and-by.” Or, “Apprentice good church members.” Certainly, he did not say, “Make holier-than-thou men and women.”
In the Great Commission, what did Jesus tell us to make? Right. Disciples. Other learners. Other doers.
Christianity in the United States is soft and selfish. Why? We have not made disciples. We have made church members, moralists, dogmatists, intellectuals, churchmen, nationalists, … And we have, more than most church leaders would want to admit, trained clerics to “run churches” not make disciples – and this running churches has helped ruin churches. We have paid a steep price for following materialistic, mechanistic, and business aspects of modern Western culture, rather than the organic model of Scripture, monasticism, and mysticism.
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The early monastic movement began using the Greek term praktika. This word referred to the doings essential to freedom in Christ. The monks engaged Practices, what we now call Spiritual Disciples, or Means of Grace, to cooperate with the Spirit in growing themselves as disciples. After all, our word “disciple” and “discipline” are from the same root.
To follow the Jesus Way is to accept disciplines, is to be a disciple. And the Practices are to make one inwardly and outwardly more like Jesus, the Master.
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When we see ourselves as disciples of Christ, we see ourselves in process. We see we are still under the tutelage of the Spirit of Christ. We see all the acts of devotion, public and private, and the experience of our daily lives as present to be utilized to shape us more into the Living Christ.
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Once upon a time, a group of men from Chicago left their jobs in the high-rise office buildings, moved to the prairie, and bought some farmland. "We're farmers!" They all declared to each other. And all summer long they would go to the field to watch their crop grow up. However, when September rolled in, their fields were filled with goldenrod and all kinds of wildflowers and weeds. "Where's the corn?" they asked each other. And they wondered what they could have possibly done wrong.
*www.watersedge.tv
We need to plan and act for Fulness of Life. That is right, the life of spiritual Practice, of being a Jesus disciple, is a life of full-ness, of full-fillment: we do not lose, except what we lose to gain.
Dallas Willard, in his The Great Omission, has a section “Planning for Fulness of Life.” In it he writes that we have received “tried and true” means to pursue the abundant life in Christ Jesus. He affirms:
These ways are often referred to as “spiritual disciplines.” We can and must incorporate these into our lives as completely reliable ways of personal soul care. There is no substitute for this.
Indeed, such Practices include, as I intimated, potentially any form of life activity: “Any activity that is in our power and enables us to achieve by grace what we cannot achieve by direct effort is a discipline of the spiritual life.”
This does not mean we earn something through effort. Rather, we apply a wisdom practice to open the way for the natural processes of Spirit and soul to operate and bring to fruition potentials.
[G]race is not opposed to effort (action) — though it is opposed to earning (attitude) — the way is open for us to “work out” all that is involved in our salvation, not only “with fear and trembling” but also with the calm assurance that it is God who is at work in us to accomplish all of His goodwill (see Phil. 2:12-13, NASB).
12So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in [or, among] you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
*Philippians 2.12-13 (NASB)
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Willard aptly refers us, then, to a scripture passage noting the process of becoming Christ-like, and the effort entailed in it.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness [devotion, NAB], and godliness [devotion, NAB] with familial affection, and familial affection with love.
*II Peter 1.5-7 (ESV), inclusive adaptation
We are, then, for enjoyment of these Christ-like qualities, to “make every effort” (ESV, NLT). We are called to “do your best” (CEV). So, these qualities arise out of a daily exercise of consecrating all our activity, inner and outer, the so-called secular and so-called religious, or spiritual, as Means of Grace. And, added to this, is the intentional acts of devotion as praktika.
St. Paul continues with a focus on the process of discipleship, noting the organic nature of it. He writes, also, of those who fail, quite unnatural to one who claims to be a Jesus follower, to grow:
8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your [experiential, personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
*II Peter 1.8-9 (NLT)
The goal of discipleship is, then, both organic and practical. The person becoming more the Christ grows as one “productive and useful.”
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For the one devoted to praktika, he or she receives an assurance not given to anyone else professing to follow Christ.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.
*II Peter 1.10 (NLT)
What are the things we are to do? The thoughts and actions that mature the fruit we read in verses 5-7. And these qualities, and other similar ones in the New Testament, are portraits of Jesus Christ. This means something very important: Scripture provides lists of attributes that demonstrate the genuineness of a confession of Christian discipleship. If a person is not evidencing growth in these qualities, then, his or her life belies the lie, unintentional or not, of the confession.
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The person who popularized the term praktika for spiritual disciples is Evagrius Pontus (345-399), in his classic Practikos, which dealt with preliminary practices to curb passions of the body. Evagrius absorbed and creatively transmitted the spirituality of Egyptian and Palestinian monasticism of the late 300s. Migrating from his home in Asia Minor, Evagrius spent time in Constantinople, where his spiritual father, Gregory Nazianzus, ordained him as a deacon, in 379. Fleeing from the temptation of an affair, Evagrius went to Jerusalem. There he joined a monastery. By 383 he was in Egypt, where he met many of the key figures of Egyptian monasticism. Thereafter, Evagrius practiced rigorous praktika and wrote extensively about the intersection of the Bible and challenges of the spiritual life.
Let us, like Evagrius, engage in spiritual Practice that will show we are true disciples of Jesus Christ. Like him, we, too, are prone to temptations that would lead us from wisdom and love. We, like him, need to see transformed natural desires that have been turned unnaturally to our harm, and the harm of those about us. And, like him, we are endowed with means to engage in loving effort to focus our energies on cooperating with the Holy Spirit in Her shaping of us into being the mystical Body of Christ.
Responding
1.How does the opening story from Anthony de Mello relate to this writing?
2.What are some practices you consistently engage to become more like Christ?
3.What are some spiritual means you could employ to become more like Christ?
4.Are you part of a group making disciples of Jesus Christ? Explain.
5.Is it possible to be a true Christian and not a disciple of Jesus Christ? Explain.
6.Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, what, beyond your confession, demonstrates your discipleship?
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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