By Dr. David A. Busic, General Superintendent<\/p>\n
Holiness discipleship does not happen naturally. It is both spiritual (what God does for us by his grace) and practical (how we participate with the grace of God).<\/p>\n
When referring to character formation, the ancient writers often used the term \u201cvirtue.\u201d They believed virtue to be what happens when consistent and faithful choices are made until actions become second nature.<\/p>\n
In N.T. Wright\u2019s marvelous book on discipleship, After You Believe, he tells the story of how Captain C.B. \u201cSully\u201d Sullenberger was able to make quick and crucial decisions to land a commercial airplane full of passengers on the Hudson River. Wright explains:
\n\u201cSully wasn\u2019t born being able to fly a plane, let alone the \u2018soul skills\u2019 that showed up in a matter of a few minutes, like courage, quick judgment, and concern for the safety of others at risk of your own. No, you have to practice it until what starts out as feeling
\nvery odd begins to feel normal, and then what feels normal begins to be so ingrained into your mind and muscle memory that you react rather than having to think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright points out that what Sully needed in that moment was not just knowledge or determination; he needed the practiced virtue of what had become like \u201csecond nature\u201d to him. It is this \u201csecond nature\u201d idea that caused me to reflect on holiness discipleship.<\/p>\n
There are few who would disagree that virtues like courage, endurance, restraint, wisdom, good judgment, and patience don\u2019t come naturally to us. They are aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that are cultivated in us by the Holy Spirit. Often, these are
\ningrained into our character through painful and difficult circumstances.<\/p>\n
Many people can present themselves initially as courageous and patient, but as you get to know them you realize that it is only at a superficial level. When faced with a crisis, or when their guard is down, they are as anxious and impatient as anybody else. As
\nWright would say, \u201cthey are just doing what comes naturally because they haven\u2019t acquired new second nature skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our Christian character is not made in a crisis, but instead it is revealed. When we don\u2019t have time to reflect, but only react, who we really are shows up every time.<\/p>\n
Becoming like Jesus does not happen automatically. We are saved and sanctified in a moment, but Christlike character is grown in us for a lifetime. In that way, the fruit of the Spirit is both a gift and a maturing virtue. We are provided the potential of a
\nChristlike character, but we must learn to garden the holy blossoms of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control toward a mature Christian character that looks like Jesus.<\/p>\n
This gardening of the fruit looks like the holy practices some would call the spiritual disciplines. Making space for a daily quiet time with God, consistently being in God\u2019s Word, learning to pray, and using our spiritual gifts to serve others can all become a means of grace that the apostle Paul says can help us \u201ccontinue to work out our salvation [that is, cultivate, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling.\u201d (Philippians 2:12 AMP)<\/p>\n
Holiness discipleship is spiritual and practical. We cannot have one without the other.<\/p>\n
Taken from The Journey Newsletter<\/em>, a resource of Nazarene Discipleship International. By Dr. David A. Busic, General Superintendent Holiness discipleship does not happen naturally. It is both spiritual (what God does for us by his grace) and practical (how we participate with the grace of God). When referring to character formation, the ancient writers often used the term \u201cvirtue.\u201d They believed virtue to be what happens <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":84470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3380,276,266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-resources-ndi","category-sunday-school-and-discipleship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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