There are three common ways Christians try to adopt Jesus' Way that doesn't produce much long-term change.

Losing strategy #1 Willpower

Within you and all around you are strong forces that eat willpower for breakfast: deeply ingrained habits of sin that come from your family line, the automatic responses of your body, and any form of trauma, addiction, or fear.

Comer, John Mark. Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did (p. 102). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Losing Strategy #2 More Bible Study

A lot of churches operate on the assumption that as a person’s knowledge of the Bible increases, their maturity will increase with it. I have been around Bible-teaching churches for my entire life, and I can assure you this is, at best, wildly insufficient.

John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did (p. 103). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Most Christians are educated well BEYOND their level of obedience.

"I simply do not believe that we can continue to try and think our way into a new way of acting, but rather, we need to act our way into new way of thinking."

Alan Hirsch

Losing Strategy #3: The Zap from Heaven

Miracles, emotional breakthroughs, and profound moments of radical change do happen, and need to happen, but they are not the daily path of discipleship. Like growth spurts or invasive surgeries in a child or adolescent, they are an essential part of our development as persons, but most of our growth is a slow, incremental but noticeable maturation into adulthood. A lightning bolt from heaven is not (likely) the solution.

John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did (p. 106). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I’m saying we need to practice the Way of Jesus, not just go out and try to do it. For all the pro-grace, anti-works talk in the church, many people still attempt to live out Jesus’ teachings based on biblical knowledge and willpower alone. We hear clichés like “Rely on God” or “You can’t do it in your own strength.” All true, but rarely do we learn how to rely on grace and draw on God’s energies when we most need them. So, let’s sharpen the focus on this idea of practice and give it more of an edge: What I mean by practice is more accurately the practices of Jesus, also known as the spiritual disciplines. These are essentially activities we undertake as disciples of Jesus that re-habituate the automatic responses of sin in our bodies and replace them with the intuitions of the Spirit. They are attempts to copy the example of Jesus’ lifestyle, in the hope of experiencing his life—the life we crave in the marrow of our bones.

Comer, John Mark. Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did (p. 126). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Fasting is the first practice on the list because it faces the drives of our body. Jesus' way has a lot to do with your bodily habits.

Paul introduces an ethical approach to the body as he introduces an ethical approach to sexuality.

The danger of our body is that our appetites can master us, and our body is not made to be driven by our appetites.

Fasting is choosing to do without food for a certain period of time in order to focus less on your own needs and more on God.

Fasting from things (Abstinence) is the conscious choice to do without something on which I sense an emotional, psychological or physical dependence for a period of time in order to focus on God.

Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and, arguably, the single most neglected in the modern Western church.

In fasting, you are literally praying with your body, offering all that you are to God in worship. As you yield your body to God, you are breaking the power of the flesh to control you and opening up to the power of the Spirit in its place.

You are learning to be joyful, even when you don’t get what you want. You are practicing suffering and, through it, increasing your capacity for joy in all circumstances.

And you are amplifying your prayers—increasing your capacity to both hear and be heard by God.

Fasting is hard, especially at first. Though it grows much easier with regular practice. But the “hangry” feelings that come up when we forgo meals often expose the arenas of our soul most in need of grace—and, again, open us to God in surprising ways. We begin to feed on what Jesus called the “food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Fasting truly is a lost discipline whose time has come.

Comer, John Mark. Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did (p. 204). (Function). Kindle Edition.

God wants you to talk to him about things... and to ask him for things.

Sometimes like Paul who prayed for the Zap, or Jesus in Gethsemane, the answer will be NO

Sometimes the answer will be YES, but often in ways you weren't anticipating.

Sometimes the answer is WAIT, like it was for those praying that God would avange them in Revelation 6:10.

Small group questions

1) What do you think of the idea that everyone has a "social theory" that helps them see the world? What do you think our modern social theory is?

2) Talk about the three losing strategies. Have you tried them? Is it right to call them losing strategies?

3) Matt suggested that the bible addresses one of our modern social theories directly... that the body's appetites must be met. How do you respond to the idea that part of following Jesus is about learning to discipline your body? How does that work for you?

4) Read John Mark Comer's words about fasting. Do you agree that "fasting is truly a lost discipline whose time has come"?

5) How could you spend more time in prayer? What do you want to do about that?