There is no way of getting around the fact that if you are going to be someone’s apprentice you have to BE with them. I am with Jesus to learn how to be LIKE Jesus.

Jesus gave the promise of the Advocate. The Spirit would be the One with us to remind us of Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we get the Advocate.

The instruction from Jesus to his disciples was to wait in Jerusalem until they were engulfed with power. The power was not like they were looking for. It was not power like a visible kingdom.

They were indeed engulfed in the Spirit. That presence is still here for us today. It is how we can best “be” with Jesus.

Dallas Willard warns again of how we can turn even the power of the Spirit into a new “legalism.” We just have legalistic bents in our nature. We want to be able to quantify something. With the Spirit, we quantify the outward experience or the outward signs. We identify the power of the Spirit with the power gifts, or even the ability to walk in obedience through disciplines like poverty or chastity. (“WOW! That is a spiritual person!”)

As important and wonderful as those things are (well… I take back “wonderful” to describe poverty and chastity), they are not the reality of the Kingdom life itself.

The reality of the kingdom life is an inner one, a hidden one, with ‘the Father who is in secret.’ And we often find it to be absent in those who convert many others or who manifest tongues, signs, wonders, and the like.

We have to be interactive with the Spirit (Rom. 8:14). It is about the inward activity of the Spirit transforming us into the image of Christ. The best outcome of submersion in the risen Christ is the transformation of the inner self to be like him! Our call is to simply know a continual interaction with Jesus in the days, hours, and moments of our earthly existence.

The Spirit guides us in all of this activity as he reminds us of the LIFE of Christ.

It is simple. We must learn to BE disciples.