Our Christianity has become preoccupied with doctrine, what we believe rather than practice - how we live. In Jesus, we do not just see a presentation of doctrines but an invitation to join a movement that demonstrates God’s goodness.
This infects even our language when we say things like, “Are you a believer?” Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples [Matthew 28:18-20]. You can worship and believe in Jesus without doing what he says and follow him.
Our evangelical fervor has come at the cost of spiritual formation. We can end up with a church full of believers, but followers of Jesus can be hard to come by.
This is why Jesus places spiritual formation above all else (to grow in love.) He exhorted us to first seek God and align with Him and promised that the rest would follow (Matthew 6:33.)
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
