The Way of Jesus is not a curriculum and not a method. It is a platform. As a platform, it provides the basis and framework to guide your lifelong adventure in pursuit of Jesus.
The platform does not fill in all the details or elaborate all the doctrines, but it does give you a base on which to put all of these pieces. It is a given that a follower of Jesus will continue to learn the teachings of Jesus and continue to see his or her life change into conformity with Jesus, who is our role model and our goal.
You can use any resource to advance your understanding and it will not displace the Way of Jesus. A very popular resource that answers many of the basic questions of what it means to follow Jesus is Alpha training. The Alpha curriculum or any other can be used to advance understanding of any of the seven Markers.
As a pathway the Way of Jesus guides the study and experience that might be included in a curriculum. The seven Markers have a gyroscopic centering ability to bring the focus back onto your ‘walk with Jesus’ rather than an abstract compliance to some religious ideal.
Following Jesus is an all-of-life and a lifelong endeavor. It would be impossible to include everything, but the Way of Jesus continues to bring you back on centre.
More than once a Marker has brought me back onto the pathway. This is the reason that we emphasize memorizing the Markers and letting the Spirit of Jesus teach you and prompt you to keep tracking with Jesus.
Each of the Markers is a peg on which to hang a lifetime of learning and experience. Each Marker is the tip of an lifelong thread of learning. Pull on the thread and it will continue to reel in an endless stream of discovery of life in Jesus. And you will discover that any one of Markers inevitably includes the other six.
The Markers primarily focus on ‘practice’, how you live. Even the Marker that focuses on the teachings of Jesus come back to reading and applying the Scriptures like Jesus, with the same purpose and through His eyes. ‘Listen, Trust and Obey’ are at the living heart of the Way of Jesus.
The Way of Jesus Pathway is not a method but it does depend on embracing certain daily rhythms. For the most part the daily rhythms directly mirror the Markers.
But even the daily rhythms do not tell you when or how to have your devotional time with Jesus or how to bless. These are learned through practice. It is about making the Way of Jesus your own.
God bless you as you journey With Him, After Him and Toward Him!
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