From the archives: This blog, which was originally published on August 2, explores the connection between the struggle Paul highlights in Romans 7 (namely, having the desire to do right while lacking the will to do it) and the interrogation of Peter and John in Acts 4. After the apostles healed a crippled man in the name of Jesus, the high priest and others interrogating them recognized that Peter and John had been with Jesus, which is precisely how we can overcome the struggle Paul outlines in Romans. The more we are with Jesus, the more we are like Jesus, and the more our will conforms to His.

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Read Romans 7.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

I definitely don’t have the grace Paul had. I’m sure I’m a greater sinner than Paul, and I’m guessing you feel the same way. So what shall we do then? Because we, like Paul “. . . have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

We need help.

While I was reading Romans 7, I was reminded of how Peter and John conducted themselves in Acts chapter 4.

On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:5-13)

Peter and John were such amazing communicators and such remarkable virtuous human beings because “they had been with Jesus.” (If you’re interested you can check out a related post here: The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do to Become More Like Jesus?)

So as a Jesus follower, the solution to the problem Paul raises in Acts chapter 7: our lack of ability to follow Jesus closely and live sin free lives, and the answer to how we can be transformed into the likeness of Jesus the way Peter and John were, is, to do what Peter and John did.

For all that to happen, I need to do what those leaders recognized in Peter and John. I need to be with Jesus. The more I can be with Jesus, the more I’ll become like Jesus. The more I’ll be transformed into his likeness, the way Peter and John were transformed.

Of course we can’t be with him physically, but I thank God He has provided ways for us to be in his presence. Below you’ll find 10 ways you and I can be with Jesus.

To be with Jesus, connect with people who resemble Jesus: As much as you possibly can, find the most Christlike people you can, and connect yourself to those people to the greatest degree you can. This is so important that I started to write this list in a previous blog post but stopped after number one. Because it’s so important, I asked you dear readers to just focus on finding and connecting with people who resemble Jesus, and nothing else. As I said, if you didn’t do anything else but this, you would be on your way to becoming a changed man or woman. Changed more into the likeness of Jesus. (If you’re interested, you can read more here: The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do to Become More Like Jesus?)To be with Jesus, take Communion: Taking Communion is a way of communing with Jesus. When we partake of the Eucharist we connect with Jesus in a profoundly intimate way. Also praying to Jesus in the presence of the Eucharist can be an amazing way to connect with him. So to be with Jesus, take communion often.To be with Jesus, read God’s Word: In John chapter one we see that Jesus is God’s Word. So when we engage with God’s Word we’re engaging with Jesus. In Drew Dyck’s excellent book about self discipline,  Your Future Self Will Thank You , he offers this great tip on how to form the habit of starting your day with God’s Word: Leave your Bible on your nightstand next to your bed. When you wake up in the morning, reach over, pick up your Bible, and read it. It’s likely you’re already conditioned to consume content (from your phone) when you first wake up in the morning so if you’ll just pick up your Bible first thing, you’ll read it. Do this every single morning. Even if you only read a verse or two, do it every morning and you’ll find yourself in the habit of receiving from Jesus daily.To be with Jesus, pray: Pray. Pray every day. Pray while you read your Bible in the morning and make it a two way conversation with Jesus. Pray after you read your Bible in the morning. Pray the way Jesus instructed us to pray: “Our Father . . .” Pray “The Way of Jesus Prayer” from 1 Corinthians 13. Pray as you go through your day. Check in with Jesus often in the manner of Brother Lawrence from  The Practice of the Presence of God . Pray before meals, give thanks. Pray in lonely places the way Jesus did. Pray inside your church. Pray in your closet. Pray out loud. Pray standing. Pray with your hands raised to heaven. Pray on your face with your nose in the carpet. Pray with your wife and your kids and your friends. Pray before you go to bed. To be with Jesus, pray.To be with Jesus, study Jesus: If you read my book  Love Like Jesus , you know about how the very intentional study of Jesus in the Gospels changed my life forever. I looked at his every interaction with another human being and each of his teachings and his life. I highly recommend a deep dive into Jesus in the Gospels as a way to be in his presence, as a way to be with him.To be with Jesus, study the lives of those who have most resembled Jesus: In previous blog posts we’ve looked at the lives of the Apostles Peter and John. But we can also look at the lives of the two disciples of the Apostle John, Ignatius and Polycarp. (If you’re interested you can read an epistle Ignatius wrote here: The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans.) We can look at the life of someone like Teresa of Avila. (If you want to, you can learn more about Teresa of Avila here:  The Way of Perfection .) We can look at the life of a Church Father such as Augustine. Studying these people can inspire us in our connection with Jesus. Studying people who resemble Jesus can help us to enter into his presence.To be with Jesus, serve with Jesus: When we want to be with someone and love them and have a relationship with them we learn about what they love. And Jesus loves to serve. He has a heart for the poor. So help the poor. Find Christlike people who are helping the poor, and do something to help them help the poor. Ignatius, the leader of the ancient church of Antioch, wrote that one way to determine if someone was a false teacher was to find out whether or not he helped the poor. And you can connect with Jesus by helping orphans and widows too. James tells us that God loves it when we help orphans and widows. By serving in these ways we’re just doing things we know Jesus loves. That’s what someone does when they want a relationship with another person.To be with Jesus, do everything with Jesus: If you want to be intimate with someone, there’s no substitute for history. I was on a streak for a few days of asking God to be by my side throughout every minute of the day. For significant periods, to my surprise and delight, He was! (Disclaimer: I’m early in the process of trying to establish this practice and it’s still very much a work in progress.) So here’s the way it works: In the morning I ask God to go through my day with me by my side. And before I begin to do anything, or as I begin to do something, or if I forget — halfway through doing something, I ask God if I can not do this alone. I ask Him if He will do it with me. If I’m alone in the car I clear the McDonald’s wrappers and phone charger cord off the passenger seat and ask Him to join me. Sometimes if I’m at the dining room table I’ll pull out a chair for Him to sit in. If I’m in a group I silently ask Him if He will join us. It’s a little streaky whether or not I feel His presence but I’ll take every minute I can get. Life is so much better with Him than without Him.To be with Jesus, be vulnerable with Jesus: Think about your closest most intimate relationships. After time spent, and history experienced eventually you got around to being vulnerable with each other. You shared things that you wouldn’t share with anyone else. You shared things you didn’t want anyone else to know. Be that way with Jesus. Christ loves the humble person but humility doesn’t necessarily require another person (or another Person). Vulnerability requires another. So in a certain sense vulnerability is humility in relationship. Jesus wants you to give your whole self to him, including your vulnerable parts. (Hicks)To be with Jesus, love the people around you: God puts certain people around you and around me, and sometimes those people sin differently than we do. And when people sin differently than we do, we sometimes find them to be obnoxious! I’m pretty sure that was intentional. Part of what God wants us to learn during our time here on planet earth is to love people who we find obnoxious. Like most things in life we learn about relationships through experience. If we’re intentional about it we can learn how to love people better through practice. And when we practice loving the people around us well, even when they’re obnoxious, we learn how to love Jesus better too. Not only that, but there’s a direct connection to Jesus here as well. At the judgement they asked, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And Jesus will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

To be transformed into a more Christlike human being, I, you, we need to be with him. We need to make our relationship with Jesus everything we can make it. We need to spend time in his presence.

Like Peter and John, we need to be with Jesus.

Unlike Peter and John, we don’t have his physical presence, but we still have these ten ways.

“Father, please be merciful to us because we’re sinners. We know, no good thing dwells in our flesh. We desire to do what is good and right in Your sight but we lack the ability to carry it out on our own. We so desire to be transformed into the likeness of Your Son. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit and inspire us to be with Jesus in every way possible. Bless us with Jesus’ presence. Make each one of us into a person who’s filled with the love of Christ.

“In Jesus’ name.

“Amen”

Notes:

Drew Dyck, Your Future Self Will Thank You, Moody Publishers, 2019

Father Boniface Hicks, On Prayer and Intimacy with Jesus, Pints With Aquinas interview with Matt Fradd, 5/27/2021

Available on Amazon, Google Play Books, and Audible!

Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)

In this heartfelt, Scripture-rich journey, Kurt Bennett invites you to study not just the words of Jesus, but His actions—His love, His mercy, His boundaries, and even His naps.

Honest. Practical. Deeply human.

Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:

Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.

With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.

A life of loving like Jesus.

(Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon, the ebook is now available on Google Play Books, and the audiobook is available on Audible.)

Now you can take Love Like Jesus with you wherever life happens.
We recently released the audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Jonathan St. John. And it’s available on the following platforms:

AudibleiTunes/Apple BooksAudiobooks.comSpotify

It’s also available on Amazon, Hoopla, Audiobooksnow, Chirp, Libro, Overdrive, and virtually everywhere audiobooks are offered.

You can listen right now!