Christian spirituality is ongoing interaction with and surrender to the living Jesus, that produces the fruit of the Spirit. It’s based on the risen Jesus, not on meeting attendance, legalism, or self-assertion, and needs to be a lived reality, not a theological concept.

No matter where you go, Jesus is there. Thus, you can continually interact with Him. That’s what the Bible means by “abide” in Him. “Devotions” or “quiet times” are a poor substitute for continually focusing on and interacting with the risen Jesus.

Without an ongoing, experiential relationship with the risen Jesus, an intellectual approach to Christianity is incomplete. Many Christians are paralyzed by grace. They believe they have everything God has to offer and that there’s nothing for them to do but wait to go to Heaven. The Bible tells us to “turn away” from such a powerless “form of godliness” and to let “Christ be formed in you.”

When the living Jesus directly teaches you, His words do what no other words can do. They make you alive from the inside out. A Christian who is growing spiritually will interact with, surrender to, and obey the living Jesus more and more. A relationship with Jesus can’t be earned, but once you freely receive it, you can either develop it or drift away from it.

When strangers who experience the living Jesus meet, their experiences with Him match, demonstrating His reality. Christians are called to be an active part body of Christ, united heart-to-heart with all other followers of the living Jesus. When Christians are led by the Spirit, they are led into unity and love for one another. When they aren’t, they’re divisive.

Much stuff that we call Christian blocks our view of the living Jesus. Christians are called to actively grow in our relationship with Jesus, not to settle into a religious routine. We can’t follow the living Jesus without actively engaging with and obeying Him on an ongoing basis. Following Jesus doesn’t require classes or a church’s list of steps. It’s much simplier than that. Just focus on and obey Him.

We want to arrange our circumstances in a comfortable order. God wants us to allow our life to follow His order. In order to worship in God’s order, we need to let the living Jesus directly lead us. The religious term “laity” has come to mean laidback and passive church attendees.

When a group of Christians meet to all hear and obey the living Jesus, supernatural order sets in. Attempts to organize the Holy Spirit result in quenching the Spirit. In a Christian meeting, anyone who quenches or disobeys the Holy Spirit, is out of order.

The most powerful praying is continual interaction with and surrender to the living Jesus. Discipling is more about modeling than mentoring–letting Jesus actively live in and thru you, instead of telling others what to do.