Be with Jesus — Live in continual connection with Jesus. Learn to attend to His presence, remain in His love, and rely upon Him throughout everyday life.
Our first calling as disciples is to be with Jesus. Before we work for Him, we are invited to live in communion with Him. Jesus did not merely invite His first followers to adopt His teachings or accomplish religious tasks. He called them to follow Him — to share life with Him, learn from Him, and discover an entirely new way of living under His loving reign. The same invitation remains open to us.
God is forming us to become mature participants in His purposes — a calling that begins here on earth and extends into eternity with Him. At the heart of that calling is a living relationship with Jesus. He is not simply preparing us to do His work. He is drawing us into everlasting communion with Himself.
Jesus Himself modeled a life of continual dependence upon His Father. He lived attentively, faithfully, and obediently in relationship with Him (John 5:19). Likewise, our participation in God's purposes must remain rooted in communion with Jesus. We are not called merely to work for Him, but to learn to live and act with Him. Being with Jesus is therefore not simply setting aside time for religious activities. It is learning to live every part of life in an ongoing relationship of love, attention, dependence, and trust.
Three practices help us cultivate this life of communion:
Fix your attention on Jesus through Scripture and prayer. Continue turning toward Him through 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.
Scripture:
"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." — 2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
Beholding Jesus begins with attention. Much of our lives is shaped by what continually captures our attention. Our circumstances, fears, desires, cultural assumptions, and daily concerns can gradually become the lenses through which we interpret reality.
Jesus invites us to see differently. Through Scripture, prayer, and worship, we turn our attention toward Him — not merely to accumulate knowledge, but to know the living Christ and allow His truth to reshape our understanding. As we behold Jesus, we learn to see God more clearly. We discover His goodness, holiness, compassion, and faithfulness. We also begin to see ourselves and others more truthfully. This is essential because sin distorts perception. We can misunderstand God's character, misjudge ourselves, and interpret other people through fear, pride, or wounded expectations.
Jesus restores our sight. The more clearly we see Him, the more we recognize where our perceptions need correction. What once seemed threatening may become an opportunity for trust. What once appeared desirable may lose its hold. People we previously overlooked may become visible to us through His compassion.
And as we see the world through His eyes, we begin to recognize His purposes more clearly. We learn to distinguish what genuinely matters from what merely demands our attention. We begin to see people as God sees them — not simply in terms of their immediate needs or usefulness to us, but as people He loves.
Beholding helps us participate wisely in God's purposes because we increasingly learn to see reality through the eyes of Jesus. This also points toward our eternal hope. Scripture promises that one day we will see Him as He is and be made like Him (1 John 3:2). The One we are learning to behold now is the One we will know in the fullness of His presence forever. Our present seeing is partial, but our hope is to behold Him face to face.
Remain in Him like a branch connected to a vine. Receive your life from Him and learn to walk with Him throughout ordinary life.
Scripture:
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. " — John 15:4–5 ESV
Jesus describes our relationship with Him through the image of a vine and its branches. A branch does not produce fruit by independent effort. Its fruitfulness depends upon remaining connected to the vine from which it receives life. This is the foundation of Christian transformation and fruitful participation in God's work.
We do not become like Jesus simply by trying harder to imitate Him. Nor can we faithfully carry out His purposes through our own strength and determination. We grow as we remain in Him, drawing upon His life and responding to His Spirit.
Abiding involves cultivating an ongoing awareness of our dependence upon Jesus. We learn to turn toward Him in ordinary moments, seek His wisdom in decisions, and rely upon His strength when our own resources are insufficient. This relationship is not limited to devotional time. We learn to walk with Jesus while working, resting, serving, facing conflict, or navigating uncertainty.
Abiding also means remaining responsive to His words and leadership. Jesus does not call us into a relationship on our own terms, but into a life increasingly shaped by trust, surrender, love, and obedience.
As our capacity to carry responsibility grows, our dependence upon Jesus must remain central. Greater maturity does not make us more independent of Him. It enables us to carry increasing responsibility while remaining deeply dependent upon His life and leadership.
We are with Jesus because He is our source. His life bears fruit through ours.
And this relationship is not temporary. Eternal life is not simply an endless extension of existence. Jesus describes it in profoundly relational terms: knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3). The communion we are learning to cultivate now belongs to a relationship that will never end.
Trust His love, surrender control, and learn dependence upon Him rather than attempting to carry life on your own.
Scripture:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11:28–30 NIV
Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to Him and find rest. This rest is more than relief from exhaustion. It is learning to live under His gentle leadership rather than the exhausting demands of self-reliance. We often carry responsibilities as though everything depends upon us. We strive to secure outcomes, manage uncertainty, prove ourselves, or maintain control. Even our desire to serve God can become distorted when we begin carrying His purposes as though their success depends entirely upon us.
Jesus invites us into another way. Resting in Him means trusting His goodness and faithfulness, even when circumstances remain difficult. It involves surrendering our insistence upon controlling what belongs to God while faithfully attending to what He has entrusted to us.
Rest does not mean inactivity or irresponsibility. Jesus Himself lived with remarkable purpose, yet in continual dependence upon His Father. Likewise, we learn to act from trust rather than anxiety, respond from love rather than pressure, and carry responsibility without assuming that everything rests upon our shoulders.
Mature participation in God's purposes requires learning both what is ours to carry and what we must entrust to Him. This freedom allows us to serve others without needing to control them, pursue results without making success our identity, and remain faithful even when outcomes are uncertain.
Rest is not the absence of faithful action. It is the posture of trust from which faithful action grows. And the rest Jesus offers now anticipates the fullness of life in God's presence, where the burdens of sin, suffering, and death will be no more (Revelation 21:3–4). The God who teaches us to trust Him now is the One with whom we will dwell forever.
These three dimensions describe different but closely connected aspects of our relationship with Jesus.
Beholding Jesus is about attention and perception. We turn 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 in relationship with Him, receiving the life we cannot produce independently.
Resting in Jesus is about trust and surrender. We release striving and control as we learn to rely upon His goodness and faithfulness.
Behold sets our focus. Abide sets our pace. Rest sets us free.
These are not three steps we complete in sequence. Each continually deepens the others. As we behold Jesus more clearly, we learn to trust and remain in Him more deeply. As we abide, we become increasingly aware of His faithfulness. As we rest in His care, we become freer to respond in love and obedience.
Transformation begins as we turn our attention toward Jesus and allow the truth of who He is to correct the ways we see. What we behold, we increasingly learn to trust. His faithfulness, mercy, and nearness become realities in which we learn to live. Fascination with Jesus gradually deepens into formation by Jesus.
As we abide, we learn to rest. We surrender the illusion that everything depends upon us and discover the freedom of relying upon Him. From that growing relationship of attention, dependence, and trust, our responses to life begin to change. We become increasingly like the One we behold, trust, and love.
Being with Jesus is never meant to become an isolated spiritual pursuit disconnected from the rest of life. God is not simply forming people who enjoy meaningful spiritual experiences. He is forming people who increasingly know Him, share His heart, and participate faithfully in His purposes. As we remain with Jesus, His Spirit forms His character within us. And as His love takes root, we become increasingly capable of loving others well.
Our relationship with Him changes how we respond to conflict, carry responsibility, and care for people. We become more attentive not only to His presence but also to the people He places before us. Communion therefore nourishes both our transformation and our participation in His mission.
And when the challenges of loving and serving others expose our immaturity, those experiences invite us back into deeper dependence upon Him. We do not graduate from communion as we become more mature. The more responsibility we carry, the more essential our dependence upon Jesus becomes.
And even when the work of formation in this present life reaches its fulfillment, our relationship with Him will continue. Scripture's picture of eternity is not one of separation from meaningful life and purpose, but of God's people dwelling in His presence, serving Him, and reigning with Him (Revelation 22:3–5). Communion with God is not merely the means by which we prepare for eternity. It is central to the eternal life for which He is preparing us.
Ask yourself:
What is Jesus showing me about Himself?
Where might my perception of God, myself, or others need correction?
Where is He inviting me to depend upon Him more deeply as I carry the responsibilities before me?
Return to Scripture. Attend to what the Spirit may be bringing to your awareness, and respond with one concrete expression of trust. Remember that the purpose is not to complete another spiritual assignment, but to grow in a living relationship with Jesus.
Being with Jesus is not a stage we eventually leave behind. It is the ongoing source of our life, transformation, and participation in His purposes. As we behold Him, abide in Him, and rest in His care, we learn to see reality more clearly, trust Him more deeply, and respond to life increasingly as He would.
We are learning now to live with Jesus, whose presence and love we will enjoy forever. The relationship that forms us today is the life we are being invited to share with Him for eternity.
Continue exploring: Become like Jesus — Deep Transformation