It is yielding to Jesus. It is learning to follow his lead. It is learning to rest in the reality that if I am to “improve” at all, it is going to be his work in me rather than my work for him. Spiritual transformation is much more about what God is forming in me than in what I am doing. I was helpless to help myself; Christ came to do for me what I could not do for myself.
That, in a nutshell, is one way of preaching the gospel. After the initial ego-sting wears off, it really is good news.
The gospel, according to certain tellings, can sound and look a lot like self-improvement. And to a self-help obsessed culture, (fueled by an industry that is worth about $13 billion dollars annually), it is no surprise when we are drawn to it. It is no surprise that so many of our “discipleship programs” are really just “self-help programs” couched in New Testament language, cherry-picking verses or stories that give a Christian seal-of-approval to self-help ideas.
Now, to be clear, I think self-improvement is a good thing. The self-help industry, as much as I cringe at the effects of capitalism on what is sold just to make a buck, is still a generally good thing. Help is help. Improvement is improvement. Growth is growth.
However, when it comes to the human soul, Self-help discipleship is an oxymoron. If I was helpless to help myself before Christ, I am still helpless to help myself after Christ. To put it in reformation language: If I am saved by grace rather than works, I cannot then revert back to works once I am saved.
Yes, I have my own role to play. I cannot just sit back and twiddle my thumbs, idly waiting for Christ to impose change upon me. It won’t happen. I must engage, and engage like this:
Listen.
Yield.
Respond.
Repeat.
For this reason, I believe that our discipleship programs must be much less content-heavy, and more connection-heavy.
