We have complicated what it means to walk with Jesus. Many experience Christianity as a long list of beliefs to master, behaviors to fix, virtues to attain, and ministries to perform.

We may be skilled or accomplished in our own fields — whether highly educated or not — but when it comes to the with-God life, we are all beginners. This life is unlike anything the world offers.

But at its core, the Christian life is beautifully simple because it revolves around Jesus:

Beholding Him leads to fascination.
Fascination leads to imitation.
And imitation, over time, leads to embodying His life.

This is how God designed human beings to change. We become like what we behold. We imitate what captures our attention. Over time, what we imitate becomes part of who we are.

That is why the goal of the Christian life is not merely to fill our minds with knowledge. It is not simply to achieve certain virtues or accomplish a set of works. Those things matter deeply, but they are not the center. Our focus is Jesus. As we behold Him, follow Him, and remain with Him, these other things are formed in us by His grace.

Jesus does care about our beliefs, loves, motives, and actions. But He shapes them by drawing us near to Himself, not by requiring perfection before we follow Him. The Christian life includes right belief, ordered loves, pure motives, and obedient actions — but it begins and remains centered on Jesus Himself. 

Yet we often present the Christian life as if people must first get their theology, emotions, motives, and behavior in order before they can truly follow Him. But Jesus did not begin there. He began with an invitation: “Follow Me.”

Then, through nearness, relationship, correction, practice, failure, and restoration, He formed His disciples.

In the rabbinic world, teachers typically chose the best of the best—the most qualified and promising students. But Jesus did something different. He chose the unlikely. He chose those who would not have made the cut. He chose ordinary, uneducated people. And His invitation was simple: “Follow Me.”

He called them to be with Him, become like Him, and do what He did.

At first, they did not realize how deeply this would transform their imperfect lives. But over three years, they were shaped by being with Him. They learned life-on-life. They watched their perfect Leader. They listened to His words. They observed His compassion, courage, holiness, dependence on the Father, and love for people.

They also began to see how Jesus lived from a completely different center. He used Scripture not merely as rules to quote or principles to apply, but as a window into the mind and heart of God. He saw beneath people’s outward actions and discerned what was really happening in their hearts. He noticed hidden motives, misplaced desires, sincere faith, quiet pain, and hardened resistance. He was not afraid to expose and confront what was false, but He always did so from truth, love, and perfect union with the Father.

The disciples were not only learning a new set of behaviors. They were learning a new way of seeing. They were being trained to think with the mind of Jesus, love with the heart of Jesus, discern with the wisdom of Jesus, and act in the way of Jesus. His life was slowly moving them into a new kind of life.

They saw how He guarded His inner life through silence, solitude, prayer, and reflection. The many times He withdrew to be with the Father did not go unnoticed. In those hidden places, Jesus lived in continual communion with the Father. He realigned everything with the Father’s heart, received the Father’s perspective, and moved from that place into love, truth, power, and obedience.

They were invited into both His being and His doing.

This is how Jesus took imperfect disciples and formed them into prepared servants of the King — men who would help change the world.

And this is not just how Jesus worked then. This is still how He forms people now.

He still says, “Come, follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” In other words: Be with Me. Watch Me. Learn from Me. Walk with Me. Let My life shape your life.

Today, we draw near to Jesus through His Word and through an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals who Jesus is, reminds us of what He said, and forms His life within us.

Walking with Jesus today often looks simple and ordinary. It looks like opening the Scriptures not just to gather information, but to behold Him. It looks like talking with Him throughout the day, asking for His help, and listening for the Spirit’s leading. It looks like paying attention to how Jesus loved people, handled pressure, responded to pain, resisted temptation, served the weak, spoke truth, and remained close to the Father.

Then, as we move through our day, we begin to practice His way. We forgive when we would rather hold onto offense. We serve when we would rather be noticed. We tell the truth when it would be easier to hide. We slow down to love the person in front of us. We bring our fears, desires, motives, and decisions into His presence.

It also involves processing life with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We talk together about what we are learning, where we are struggling, and what we are seeing and valuing in Jesus. We help one another notice His ways. We encourage one another to respond to Him. We become a sounding board for one another as we seek to discern what Jesus is forming in us.

In this way, all of life becomes His training ground. Nature, relationships, work, conflict, disappointment, temptation, suffering, and complex situations all become places where Jesus shapes us. Nothing is wasted when we bring it to Him. Nothing is meaningless when we process it with Him and with His people.

And Jesus does not form us in isolation. He brings us together with others who are on the same journey. We grow alongside fellow disciples who are also being shaped by Him. Within the context of spiritual family, Jesus continues His work through His Word, His Spirit, and His people.

The Christian life is simple in its design, though not always easy in its practice. This does not mean it is passive or effortless. It means the pathway of formation is clear: we stay close to Jesus, behold Him, respond to Him, and allow His life to reshape us from the inside out.

This is the simple, yet powerful, process of becoming a follower of Jesus:

We behold Him.
We become fascinated by Him.
We imitate Him.
And over time, by grace, we begin to embody His life.

This is the with-God life made simple.

In this imagined scene from The Chosen, Jesus speaks with Thaddeus just before the beginning of His earthly ministry. What we see is the simple but radical invitation of discipleship: “Come be with Me, learn from Me, and let My life reshape yours.” This is the call that would transform ordinary people and, through them, change the world.