a practical disciple-making guide informed by John Mark Comer's Book: Practicing The Way
by Raimer Rojas (English & Español)
Discipleship • SERIES: Through the Lens of Jesus Christ • What Is A Disciple Of Jesus Christ? • The Radical Call of Jesus • The Biblical Connection To Practicing The Way • Holistic Discipleship Framework
So many were drawn to Jesus — captivated by His miracles and stirred by His words. But when He invited them to follow Him, everything changed. His invitation was not casual; it was costly. It meant leaving comfort, rethinking identity, and bringing every part of life under His loving reign. It was a call to a radically different way of life centered upon Him.
Today, the name "disciple" is used freely, but too often it is disconnected from a life that truly reflects Jesus. The difference between believers and the world around them can become blurry, yet it was never meant to be that way. Jesus’ call was — and still is — radical, specific, and life-changing.
I remember when this burden first gripped me. In 1995, after a personal encounter with God shattered many of my assumptions, I began to see the shallow waters we often call “discipleship.” I saw more clearly how casually the Church could treat Jesus’ command to make disciples and how easily we could settle for forms of godliness that lacked the power to transform.
It wrecked me. Night after night, I wrestled in prayer with one burning question: How do we awaken the Church to the kind of disciple-making Jesus actually called for — discipleship that reshapes the heart, reorders the life, and increasingly reflects His image?
It often felt like swimming against the current — this ache for a deeper way and a clearer framework for forming people from the inside out. The ache never left. Decades later, the burden still burns.
More recently, as I was looking for a clear way to organize the larger work of discipleship, I came across John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way. His three broad categories for apprenticeship to Jesus gave me a simple structure for describing the lifelong journey:
Be with Jesus → Become like Jesus → Do as He Did
These categories brought clarity to something I had already been seeking to understand and develop. I have since adapted and expanded the framework for this guide. Some of the subcategories draw from Comer’s work; others have been changed or added through my own study, experience, and reflection.
I have also added a larger biblical aim that captures where all three pursuits are moving: Live as Jesus Lived. Together, these pursuits describe a whole life increasingly centered upon Jesus and aligned with His way.
The Aim: Live as Jesus Lived
Be with Jesus • Become like Jesus • Do as He Did
Jesus is not merely the subject of discipleship. He is its living center — our Teacher and King, the source of our life, and the One whose Spirit transforms us. We learn to see reality through Him, trust Him with our lives, and increasingly bring every part of ourselves under His loving reign.
This framework is not a checklist to master. It gives us a simple way to keep returning to Jesus:
Where is He inviting me nearer?
What is He forming within me?
How is He calling me to respond?
We never outgrow these questions because we never exhaust the inexhaustible Christ.
These three pursuits are not separate compartments of discipleship. Together, they describe a whole life ordered around Jesus:
As apprentices, we are committed to being with Jesus so we may know Him, trust Him, and learn to see reality through Him.
As we remain with Him, we yield to His Spirit to become like Jesus — allowing Him to renew our minds, reorder our loves, and purify our motives as He forms His character within us.
As His character takes shape within us, we learn to do as He did — responding in faithful obedience and participating in His mission in the world.
We slow down with Jesus so His Spirit can form our interior life, shaping Christlike character from which faithful action increasingly flows: presence → formation → action. The aim is not merely knowing about Jesus, becoming better people, or copying isolated actions from His life. It is whole-life alignment under His loving reign. As God works within us and we actively respond to His grace, our way of seeing, loving, and living increasingly takes on the shape of Jesus.
Scripture summarizes this lifelong journey with remarkable clarity: “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” — 1 John 2:6 NIV. That is the direction of Christian discipleship: to increasingly live as Jesus lived.
To follow Jesus is to apprentice under Him — to center our lives on Him, learn His way from Him, and ultimately live as He lived. True discipleship is not merely belief, self-improvement, or religious performance. It is a lifelong relationship of trusting Jesus, learning from Jesus, and bringing our whole lives into increasing alignment with Him.
Transformation is God’s gracious work in us through the Holy Spirit, yet grace does not make us passive. We actively respond through surrender, trust, practice, and obedience.
The three pursuits give us a simple way to examine our lives:
Be with Jesus — Am I staying close to Him?
Become like Jesus — What is He changing in me?
Do as He Did — How is He inviting me to respond?
Live in continual connection with Jesus. Learn to attend to His presence, remain in His love, and rely upon Him throughout everyday life.
Behold Jesus (Seeing Him Clearly) — Fix your attention on Jesus through Scripture, prayer, worship, and attentive awareness of His presence. Learn to see Him clearly so that your understanding of God and reality is increasingly shaped by who He truly is (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Abide in Jesus (Staying Connected) — Remain in Him like a branch connected to a vine. Receive your life from Him and learn to walk with Him throughout ordinary life (John 15:4–5).
Rest in Jesus (Trusting Him Fully) — Trust His love, surrender control, and learn dependence upon Him rather than attempting to carry life on your own (Matthew 11:28–30).
Our first calling as disciples is to be with Jesus. Before we work for Him, we are invited to live in communion with Him. Just as His first followers listened to His words and watched His ways, we are invited to learn life directly from Him. Jesus does not call us into a distant or merely ritualistic faith. He calls us into an abiding relationship with Himself.
As we remain near Him, He reshapes not only what we believe but how we perceive reality. We increasingly learn to see God as Jesus reveals Him, ourselves in the light of His grace, and the world in light of His kingdom. His Spirit is present — revealing Christ to us, leading us, and transforming us as we follow.
Behold, Abide, and Rest
Beholding Jesus is about attention and perception. We look toward Him so that we increasingly see Him — and reality in light of Him — more clearly.
Abiding in Jesus is about connection and dependence. We remain with Him and receive our life from Him.
Resting in Jesus is about trust and surrender. We release striving and control as we learn to rely upon Him.
Behold sets our focus. Abide sets our pace. Rest sets us free.
The Transformational Flow
Transformation begins by beholding Jesus. We slow down long enough for who He is to capture our attention. We are not merely gathering facts about Him; we are attending to the living Christ and allowing the truth of who He is to correct the ways we see.
What we see, we then learn to abide in. His faithfulness, mercy, and nearness become realities in which we learn to live. Fascination begins becoming formation.
As we abide, we learn to rest. We surrender the illusion that everything depends upon us and discover the freedom of relying upon Jesus. This rest is not passivity. It is active trust — the settled posture from which responsive obedience grows.
So Be With Jesus is not merely another spiritual task. It describes a relationship of attention, dependence, and trust. We increasingly become like the One we behold, trust, and love.
Discover and Practice
Ask: What is Jesus showing me about Himself, and where is He inviting me to trust Him more deeply? Notice what surfaces. Return to Scripture. Respond faithfully to what the Spirit brings to light.
Pursuit #1 Resources:
Learn More About Beholding:
Yield to the Holy Spirit as He renews how you see, reorders what you love, and forms you to increasingly live like Jesus.
Renew the Mind (Have the Mind of Christ) — Allow God’s truth to correct distorted ways of thinking so that you increasingly perceive God, yourself, others, and the world in light of Christ (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 2:16).
Transform the Heart (Reorder Your Loves) — Allow the Spirit to reorder your loves and purify your desires so that love for God and neighbor increasingly governs your inner life (Mark 12:29–31).
Train the Body — Practice Christlike Living — Practice obedience to Jesus. Develop habits that train your whole person to faithfully embody what God is forming within you (1 Timothy 4:7–8; 1 Corinthians 9:24–27).
Being with Jesus leads toward becoming like Him. As we remain with Him and yield to His Spirit, transformation moves from the inside out. Our perception changes. Our loves are reordered. Our motives are exposed and purified. Our actions increasingly align with His way.
Transformation is not self-improvement. God transforms us by His grace. Yet His work does not make us passive. We respond to grace. We surrender what He exposes, practice what Jesus teaches, and obey the Spirit’s leading.
To become like Jesus is to increasingly carry His mind and heart. We learn to see in light of His truth, love what He loves, and choose what pleases Him.
Mind, Heart, and Body
Renew the Mind addresses how we think and perceive.
Transform the Heart addresses what we love and why we act.
Train the Body moves what is being formed within us into faithful practice.
Together they describe a movement: Renewed mind → Reordered loves → Purified motives → Faithful action
How we see shapes what we love. What we love shapes what we pursue. What increasingly governs us within eventually becomes visible in how we live. So formation requires more than asking, “What should I do?” We also ask:
What am I believing?
What am I loving?
What is motivating me?
Jesus does not merely address outward behavior. He transforms the deeper places from which our behavior flows.
Discover and Practice
Consider an area of tension, temptation, or repeated struggle. Ask:
How might Jesus help me see this more truthfully?
What desire may need to be reordered?
What faithful response is He inviting me to practice?
Then take one concrete step of obedience.
Pursuit #2 Resources:
Join Jesus in His mission, bearing witness to the good news of His kingdom through your presence, words, and actions.
Make Space for the Gospel (Hospitality) — Create room in your life for the people God loves. Remain open to the people and opportunities God places before you, practicing the generous hospitality of Jesus (Luke 14:12–14).
Proclaim the Gospel (Outreach and Evangelism) — Speak the good news of God’s kingdom and point people to Jesus with clarity, love, and courage. (Mark 1:14–15).
Demonstrate the Gospel (Ministry, Mercy, Justice, Love and Power) — Make the good news visible through compassionate service, mercy, justice, healing, and Spirit-empowered ministry (Luke 4:18–19; Matthew 9:35–36).
A life transformed by Jesus cannot remain inward-focused. To follow Him means joining Him in His mission. Jesus did not merely teach about the kingdom of God. He embodied and announced it. He welcomed outsiders, healed the sick, confronted evil, showed mercy, and proclaimed the good news of God’s reign.
As His apprentices, we are invited to participate in His mission — not from self-generated ambition or religious obligation, but as the overflow of communion and transformation. Our participation must never be confused with Jesus’ unique saving work. He alone is Savior and King. We bear witness to what He has accomplished and participate in the good works He gives His people to do.
Doing what Jesus did flows from becoming like Jesus, and becoming like Jesus flows from being with Jesus. Without that connection, mission can become mere activity. But as we remain with Jesus and come under His loving reign, we learn to recognize where He is at work and respond faithfully. Mission becomes participation with Him rather than a project carried out independently from Him.
Living in mission is not mainly about grand gestures or public platforms. It is learning to embody the way of Jesus wherever He has placed us. In our homes, workplaces, churches, and communities, we learn to ask: Jesus, where are You at work here, and how are You calling me to respond? That is responsive obedience — living attentively under His reign and faithfully participating in His mission.
Make Space, Proclaim, and Demonstrate
Make Space for the Gospel creates room for people to encounter Jesus.
Proclaim the Gospel communicates who Jesus is, what He has done, and the kingdom He brings.
Demonstrate the Gospel makes that good news visible through embodied love, mercy, service, and Spirit-empowered action.
Together, they express participation in the mission of Jesus through our presence, our words, and our actions.
Discover and Practice
Look at the people and places God has already put around you. Ask:
Where might God already be at work?
Who is He inviting me to notice?
What would faithful participation look like today?
Sometimes the response will be to welcome. Sometimes to speak. Sometimes to serve. The goal is not to memorize categories but to become increasingly attentive and responsive to Jesus in real life.
Pursuit #3: Do As Jesus Did:
These three pursuits are simple enough to remember and deep enough to explore for a lifetime.
Again and again, we can ask:
Be with Jesus — How is He inviting me nearer?
Become like Jesus — What is He forming or realigning within me?
Do as He Did — How is He inviting me to respond?
These questions can guide personal reflection, conversations, small groups, and disciple-making relationships.
Rather than simply giving others answers, we can help them learn to look toward Jesus, listen to His Word, recognize the Spirit’s work, and respond faithfully for themselves. That makes discipleship reproducible. We are helping form disciples who increasingly know how to seek Jesus, learn from Jesus, respond to Jesus, and help others do the same. This is how formation multiplies: disciples increasingly embody the way of Jesus and walk alongside others as they learn to follow Him.
To apprentice under Jesus is to bring our whole lives under His loving reign. It means ordering life around being with Him, becoming like Him, and doing as He did. This is not a program to complete or a collection of spiritual techniques. It is a lifelong apprenticeship to the living Jesus.
We stay close to Him so that we may know Him and increasingly see reality in light of Him. His Spirit renews our minds and reorders our hearts. As His life takes shape within us, we respond in faithful obedience.
Communion leads to formation.
Formation becomes embodiment.
Embodiment overflows into mission.
Throughout it all, Jesus remains the center. He is not merely the example at the end of the process. He is the One we behold, the One in whom we abide, the One whose Spirit transforms us, and the King whose way increasingly governs our lives.
The world continually presses us into its patterns. Jesus invites us into another way — to see reality in light of Him, trust Him deeply, and increasingly align the whole of life with His kingdom. The goal, then, is not simply to know more about Jesus or do more things for Jesus. The goal is that His life increasingly becomes visible in ours.
Scripture encapsulates this lifelong journey most clearly: “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” — 1 John 2:6 NIV
This life cannot be produced by human effort. It is God’s gracious work in us through the Holy Spirit, and we actively respond through surrender, trust, and obedience.
And because Jesus is inexhaustible, there is always more to discover:
We keep learning from Him.
We keep realigning with Him.
We keep walking with Him.
And as we do, we help others learn His way. This is the journey of discipleship. This is apprenticeship to Jesus. This is the Jesus Way.
Deeper Dives Into These Three Driving Goals:
VIDEOS: Practicing The Way Videos - These are interviews with John Mark Comer.
SERMON: Practicing The Way (Bridgetown Church Sermon) - From the series "Vision Series 2023." Mark 8v34-35. Be with Jesus. Become like Jesus. Do what Jesus did
DBS Set: Practicing The Way DBS Set - A set of Discovery Bible Study passages to help you deepen in being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and Doing as Jesus did.
COURSE: Practicing The Way - An intro into Christian formation featuring eight sessions of teaching, guided conversation, and spiritual exercises designed to lay a foundation for lifelong apprenticeship to Jesus.