God Running is a place for anyone who wants to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.
Becoming More Like Jesus
This is the last chapter of The Jesus Shortcut. In summary, intentionally connecting yourself on a regular basis to a group of people who love Jesus well, love others well, and follow Jesus closely is the key to accessing God’s power. Immersion into that group will dramatically grow your ability to love like Jesus and to live like Jesus. Intimate, ongoing connection with that group will even help you to love your enemies—as Jesus commands us to. Connection with such a group will give you strength to endure and maybe even thrive through life’s worst suffering.
Over the last few years, I’ve connected myself to such a group. They’re volunteers at a place called The Jesus Table. They’re a group of some of the most virtuous human beings I’ve ever known. And they have the attributes shared in this book. Becoming a part of that group has been one of the biggest blessings I’ve ever experienced in my life.
How I hope and pray you’ll be intentional about attaching yourself to such a group.
It will change your life.
But in a certain sense, that’s the end of the story. How I arrived there, at the Jesus Table surrounded by Christlike people, and how I found myself connected to other groups of Christlike people, began with one very interesting person in particular. I’ll share more about that person just a little later in this chapter.
Acts 20:3-4
There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.
(Acts 20:3-4)
I find it interesting how the names of Paul’s friends who accompanied him on his trip are listed specifically: “Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.”
And I think it speaks to how Paul modeled his choice of friends after Jesus.
Jesus’ Friends
This segment includes content from the book Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus).
In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
(Luke 6:12-16)
We know their names. We know the twelve friends Jesus chose, even as we know the names of Paul’s friends from Acts 20. We know the apostles: Simon-Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James (or Thaddeus, as Matthew and Mark call him), and finally Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray Jesus.
But how were they chosen? How did Jesus decide with whom he would spend the next three years of his life?
We see the answer in Luke 6:12-16. Jesus “went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.”
Jesus was intensely deliberate about whom he chose to surround himself with. He went off to a place where he could be alone and undisturbed. And there in this quiet place, Jesus stayed up all night praying about his decision!
I would wager anything that Paul did something similar. I believe the seven men we see named in today’s text—Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus—were chosen in a very prayerful and intentional manner.
In the Beginning
Of course at the very beginning of my journey, we find Jesus. But those who know me well will tell you, for decades after I believed in Christ something was missing. I was a diligent churchgoer, notetaker, and student of the Bible, but while I was a fine student of scripture, I was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than I was following Jesus’ words and example. This realization hit me hard while I was writing the Love Like Jesus book.
Around the time when I was most of the way through with that book, I happened upon Jay Mark. Jay, Jay’s wife, my wife, and I were all assigned to the same summer league tennis team. And it wasn’t long before we were getting together for the occasional visit. I learned he was a genuine Jesus follower: someone who was trying to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to. We found that we had a number of common interests besides following Christ closely. We started to hang out more often.
Over the years, Jay and I have played tennis together, ridden bikes together, played pickleball together, and gone on hikes together. These common interests play a surprisingly important part in why we’re so close with each other. Common interests increase the likelihood of the kind of relationships we’re looking for.
Early on in our friendship, I was new to the Portland area, and Jay had lived here most of his adult life. So I asked Jay to connect me with people who might offer me opportunities to love like Jesus. Jay introduced to me Doug and Carol, and Dan, and Daren, and Pat, and Ben. Pat introduced me to Adam. Adam introduced me to Cynthia.
Doug and Carol introduced me to too many friends to list individually.
As a result of all these friendships, I’ve been heavily influenced to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants me to. And as a result of these friendships, over the last fifteen years, I’ve been involved in the following not-for-profits and ministries:
- The Champions Academy: A summer camp where at-risk kids receive academic instruction and coaching in several sports. I served there for one summer as an assistant basketball coach.
- Safe Families for Children: An organization that provides amazing support for new mothers (and occasionally new fathers) who find themselves alone and overwhelmed with their new role as a parent.
- Compassion Connect: A not-for-profit that organizes events in local churches where anyone can receive free medical care, free dental care, and a variety of other services.
- The Hope Center—Salvation Army: The Salvation Army helps people in a variety of ways, but my favorite is called Pathway of Hope, a series of classes to help people out of poverty.
- The Hope for the Homeless Foundation: A foundation that supports (and vets) not-for-profits that are effective at helping people to live independently. (Pathway of Hope is supported by the Hope for the Homeless Foundation.)
And then there’s The Jesus Table, where we serve a free dinner, restaurant style. Available to anyone. The food is wonderful, but the most important part of The Jesus Table is the community that’s provided. There’s a “Table Host” at every table. And every effort is made to provide a warm, welcoming environment for our guests.
I don’t share this to boast. In fact, some of those ministries weren’t a good fit, so I wasn’t there for long. Even the ones where I’m most involved, I only play a small part. That being said:
What would my life look like without these friends?
Saints Come in Clusters
A Catholic friend of mine shared this with me the other day, the idea that saints come in clusters. Down through history, we often see and hear the stories of the saints represented in isolation, but when we look more closely at those stories, we find that very often they’re friends with each other.
I’m reading the Confessions right now, and at the beginning of this book (or this series if you’re reading the articles online) I talked about how Saint Augustine’s friend Alypius became entangled with some people who were fans of the bloody gladiatorial fights in the coliseum. Their influence resulted in Alypius becoming addicted to those deadly gory violent spectacles.
But later, Alypius and Augustine come to Christ, and their lives are changed. And they started living with Evodius and Possidius. And they were connected with Ambrose and Augustine’s mother Monica.
And the thing about all these people is: every one of them is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church.
And that’s just within Augustine’s circle. There are plenty of other examples going all the way back to the Apostles, such as the Apostle John’s students, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp. Paul had Barnabas, Sopater, Aristarchus, and the rest of the Acts 20 crew, just to name a few. There’s also Ignatius of Loyola, Peter Faber, and Francis Xavier, who were all roommates at the University of Paris and even tutored each other before they became missionaries.
Each one pursued Jesus with everything they had, and they brought their closest friends and relatives along with them, and their examples are still honored to this day.
Your Friends and My Friends
I saw a commercial the other day, and at the end of the commercial they said:
“People are good for you.”
I believe that’s partially true. Humans are made for community. Being alone is the one thing in the Book of Genesis that God says is not good. But I think a much more accurate statement is:
“A specific sort of people are good for you.”
If you desire to follow Jesus closely, and love him well, and love others well, those people who are good for you have five attributes.
What overarches the following five attributes is a deep abiding love for Jesus, and a passion for following Him closely. It’s sort of the way Jesus says all the commandments are found in the two: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40).
Here are the five:
- They khesed like Jesus—that is, they love with a deep, abiding, unwavering love the way He does.
- They exude the love of Jesus, and their faces shine with the love of Jesus.
- They exhibit gratitude toward God.
- They will support you when you’re suffering.
- They desire to receive correction when their behavior is inconsistent with the character of Christ.
I believe Jesus’ closest friends and Paul’s closest friends all had those attributes.
Something worth mentioning is my friends and your friends aren’t going to demonstrate the five attributes perfectly. What I’m describing here is an ideal. Those five attributes are a description of Jesus himself. All of my friends have their quirks and character flaws. But they’re all trying. They’re all trying to grow in their love for Jesus. They’re all trying to grow in following Jesus more closely. They’re all trying to grow in the way they love others the way Jesus wants us to.
The older I become, the more I realize the importance of how Jesus and Paul chose their friends. And the more I realize the importance of how intimate they were with each other: doing ministry together, living together, traveling together.
If you’re not experiencing the joyful life Jesus said He wants for us and you’re wondering why, I think there’s a good chance it’s because you haven’t done what Jesus did and what Paul did (see John 15:11).
Finding friends the way Jesus and Paul did makes an enormous difference.
I’m experiencing that difference right now.
Life is so much better if we’ll only do this:
Very prayerfully and intentionally ask our Father who He wants you to surround yourself with.
Intentionally seek out groups who have the 5 attributes described above.
Connect yourself with one or more of these groups of people.
Faithfully continue to be with these people regularly.
Watch what God does in your life.
“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
(Jesus Christ, John 13:17)
“Father, please have Your loving hand on the life of the dear person reading this right now. Lead them and help them. Help them to connect to the group of Jesus followers You have in mind for them. Use the love of Jesus in that group to dramatically change their life forever.
“In Jesus name I pray.
“Amen.”
In closing, I leave with you these words from St. Ignatius:
“Labour together with one another; strive in company together; run together; suffer together; sleep together; and awake together, as the stewards, and associates, and servants of God.”
(St. Ignatius of Antioch to Polycarp)
Notes:
Jim Wilder, Michel Hendricks, The Other Half of Church, Moody Publishers, August 4, 2020.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, New City Press, April 1, 2007.
St. Possidius, NewAdvent.org.
Available on Google Play Books and on Amazon!
Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)
Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:
- Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
- How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
- The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
- How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
- How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
- How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
- How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
- How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
- How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.
With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.
A life of loving like Jesus. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon and Google Play Books.)
We also recently released the audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Jonathan St. John. It’s available on the following platforms:
It’s also available on Amazon, Hoopla, Audiobooksnow, Chirp, Libro, Overdrive, and virtually everywhere audiobooks are offered.
