Invitation to the Jesus Life: Book Review
Writer: Roberto Cortes
April 18, 2017
Reading Report: Jan Johnson. Invitation to the Jesus Life.Experiments in Christlikeness (NavPress, Colorado Spring, CO, 2008).
I. DESCRIPTION
The thesis of this book holds that Christians have to engage Jesus in conversation and different creative spiritual gifts that the author teaches at the end of each chapter. In soul school with Jesus, we have to do the things Jesus told his disciples to do. This way is by opening the rivers of the grace in our souls and bodies. The author tries to lead us into the experiences that make the Christ-life real in the midst of this contemporary age. The practical application of the spiritual disciplines leads us to Jesus. These practical and spiritual experiments in Johnson’s book are part of Ignatius Gospel contemplation and other spiritual disciplines. At the same time, each chapter pushes us to get a way to meditate on the Gospel.
II. Meaningful points or ideas within the summary:
· As the Kingdom of God is revealing to us, our transformation in Jesus´s model and our new style of life should light up where we go. “Living a eternal life is possible here and now; traveling the journey of transformation toward Christlikeness is realistic” (Johnson, 16). This transformation requires living in connection with God in any way. Otherwise, the human being is sentenced to subsist only half-alive. In other words, we are not living in a full and plentiful life.
· “Eternal life begins now and refers not only to [the] length of life but also the quality of life in which we experience [God]” (Johnson, 16). Therefore, wherever we go, we can taste daily the love of God in a divine life.
· The Kingdom living is an eternal life, which starts when the individual accepts Jesus Christ. William Barclay holds it is “nothing else than the life of God himself in us.”[1] Finally, according to John 17:3, Jesus defined eternal life as a period where we know God the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom God the Father has sent. Therefore, in this eternal life, we should live in harmony with the revealed will of God and with a personal fellowship with Jesus (Johnson, 17).
· “The Kingdom life is lived in conversational relationship with God in which we nourish ourselves” (Johnson, 19). Since our transformation starts, God is relational. And our heart must exercise the communication in two ways, talking and listening constantly to God. “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD” Jer. 24:7.
· “Soul school” is the journey of connecting with God, abiding in Christ, and living in terms of the Spirit” (Johnson, 19). It causes us to change inwardly.
III. INTERACTIVE ANALYSIS
Reading this book, I can appreciate that knowing a simply theology of sin and salvation is not a fully plan of God. The Kingdom living, which God planned for us, starts in the earth in an eternal life.
According to 2 Peter 1:3-4, the Kingdom living means participating in the divine nature through His very great promises. This passage of the Bible brings a new insight about of messianic scatology in which we are living now, not just for tomorrow. Finally, the Kingdom will move forward to another age. “Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power” 1 Cor. 15:24. And the Kingdom of God will be to rein fully.[2]
I disagree when Johnson writes this C. S. Lewis’s statement of our own creation, “We can build this transforming soul-friend relationship with God even as we live here on Planet Earth because we were made in heaven” (Johnson, 17). According to the study from University of Chicago that Richard Peace stated in his book Noticing God, we were made with the human capability to worship God and live supernatural experiences with God here on the earth.[3] Also, we will have this capability in heaven when we are being transformed in glorified bodies (1 Cor. 15:44, NIV). Therefore, the science reveals that we were made to experience the supernatural of God in earthly terms.
Johnson holds that God never answers petitions mechanically, but relationally. That´s why some people cannot get what they prayed for. The author holds, “We seek God´s blessings instead of God´s own self” (Johnson, 30). God is waiting for that soul-friendship with Him as John 15:15 explains, “…I call you friend…”
According to Clark Pinnock, “Each Person of The Trinity exists in loving relationship with the other Persons… [and] is a fellowship of giving and receiving.”[4] My argument with respect to this statement is that we also have a fellowship of giving and receiving with each Person of the Trinity, not only themselves, but also Them with us.
Jesus’s encounters reach out to people and pull them outside time and space in the kairos moments (Johnson, 34). As we connect with God, we experience those kairos moments.
Johnson shared her struggles regarding how she manages some situations with others. If we embrace the Gospel of Jesus, we should embrace the mystical and relational methods of Jesus (Johnson, 32). For instance, He teaches us, instead of the individual complaining about someone else, the individual should pray for that person. Instead offering a bad answer, Johnson started to ask to the Lord, “God shows me this person’s heart” (Johnson, 21).
We have to set aside preconceived ideas about Jesus´s methods. We simply have to look at Jesus who wept for Lazarus, who washed his followers’feet and lived a human life like others in sufferings. Jesus is a model to follow as authentic disciples. He was a true disciple of God the Father. If we embrace the Gospel of Jesus, we should embrace the mystical and relational methods of Jesus (Johnson, 32).
IV. APPLICATION
· Johnson was a volunteer at the Samaritan Center. People can connect with God by practicing God’s presence as Johnson shared at the Samaritan Center. She got experience in her relationships. I realized that she experienced a true ministry being simple volunteer and living stressful situations. The same happened with me as a volunteer pushing a wheelchair of an elderly woman for one year. Finally, I realized that this was a ministry and God always wants to teach us anything else through situations and actions.
· I did a spiritual experiment in connecting with God that Johnson recommends in his book about meditation. This experiment was similar to the Ignatius’s imaginative prayer that Peace taught us in his book Noticing God.[5] I read Mark 10:17-31, I imagined myself in the midst of the story, I really pictured it happening. I was able to watch events unfold as part of the drama. I embraced what Jesus said to me, the rich young ruler. Suddenly, “Jesus looked at me and loved me” v.21. Then, I engaged Jesus in conversation. He said, “Go, [and] sell everything you have...Then come, follow me.” In opposition like the young ruler did in the biblical history, I left everything (home, family, material things…) when He told me that. Then, the promise of blessings that Jesus said in the v.30 has started to happen to me again in the midst of persecution and rejection. At this time, the Holy Spirit came down upon me. I received joy and I started to cry of happiness as well.
· "We understand that if you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own...That is why the world hates [us]. So we differ from the world in faith" (Johnson, 59). God chose us as His disciples to live in Christlikeness. This new atmosphere will bring problems to us, but He will protect us in the midst of the crisis and persecution. This new outlook allows us to understand our life project´s aim is to lead others back to God. That´s why we have to model a good testimony in Jesus Christ.
[1] William Barclay. New Testament Words (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 38.
[2] George E. Ladd. “Teología del Nuevo Testamento,” capítulo 39 (Editorial CLIE, 1993), 730.
[3] Richard Peace. Noticing God: in mystical encounters, in the ordinary, in the still small voice, in the community, in creation, and more (IVP, 2012), 12.
[4] Clark Pinnock. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 62.
[5] Richard Peace. Noticing God: in mystical encounters, in the ordinary, in the still small voice, in the community, in creation, and more (InterVarsity Press, 2012), 46.