Note: I am re-reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. Over the next several weeks’ I’ll be posting my reflections as I make my way through a book  that changed my life nearly a decade ago.

In the first chapter, Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now, Dallas Willard develops several key themes that he uses in the rest of the book. Here are some key themes I see:

1. The Invitation of Jesus Christ

Our world is flying morally upside down. We’re like the pilot who crashed her plane into the ground. She was flying upside down, but didn’t know what direction she was travelling. We don’t know our direction either. We don’t know what’s right, nor do we know how to do what’s right. We don’t have the proper instrumentation to guide us through life. The good news? Jesus can show us the way home. As Willard writes, “We have received an invitation. We are invited to make a pilgrimage—into the heart and life of God.”. This compass is Jesus himself. He’s our way into the Kingdom of God. He goes on to say:

The invitation has long been on public record. You can hardly look anywhere across the human scene and not encounter it. It is “literally blowing in the wind.” A door of welcome seems open to everyone without exception. No person or circumstance other than our own decision can keep us away. “Whosoever will may come.” (p. 11)

2. Overfamiliarity with Jesus Christ

Unfortunately we’re overfamiliar with Jesus. We think we’ve accepted his invitation or rejected his invitation to follow him. But we haven’t. Our challenge is to hear his invitation at all. Willard writes, “Written everywhere, we may think, how could the invitation be subtle, or deep? It looks like the other graffiti and even shows up in the same places. But that is part of the divine conspiracy.” One reason we miss his invitation, Jesus is relegated to a savior who gets us into heaven, but has little bearing on everyday life. Willard writes:

The “gospels” that predominate where he is most frequently invoked speak only of preparing to die or else of correcting social practices and conditions. These are both, obviously, matters of great importance. Who would deny it? But neither one touches the quick of individual existence or taps the depths of the reality of Christ. Our “gospels” are, in their effects—dare we say it—nothing less than a standing invitation to omit God from the course of our daily existence ( p. 12).

3. The Relevancy of Jesus Christ

Willard asks why Jesus has remained so relevant all these centuries. He quotes Jaroslav Pelikan, who once said, “If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left?” Willard goes on to write:

I think we finally have to say that Jesus’ enduring relevance is based on his historically proven ability to speak to, to heal and empower the individual human condition. He matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weakness he gives us strength and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity (p. 13).

[Note: Next week, I’ll reflect on the second part of Dallas Willard’s chapter of “Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now.”]

Note: I am re-reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. Over the next several weeks’ I’ll be posting my reflections as I make my way through a book  that changed my life nearly a decade ago.

Dallas Willard, says he wrote The Divine Conspiracy, “to gain a fresh hearing of Jesus.” Willard believes over familiarity with Jesus’ teachings have led many Christians to “profound ignorance” about following him, meaning “he [Jesus] is not taken to be a person of much ability.”  For example, when Jesus says love your enemies, he can’t be serious, it’s an ideal that doesn’t work in the “real” world. In contrast Willard argues, Jesus’ original followers took him at his word, they saw his teachings as the best way to live in this world. He writes:

The early message was, accordingly, not experienced as something its hearers had to believe or do because otherwise something bad—something with no essential connection with real life—would happen to them. The people generally impacted by that message generally concluded that they would be fools to disregard it. That was the basis of their conversion.

The Divine Conspiracy, p. xiv

Yet this isn’t the case today. Many Christians believe in Jesus, but they don’t believe Jesus. There’s a difference for Willard.  And he claims, one reason for the “weakened effect of Christianity in the world.” Willard hoped The Divine Conspiracy would help people do what Jesus Christ said, once again, as people did in the past.

His view of discipleship has been compelling to me over the years. Before reading The Divine Conspiracy I had never considered the idea of following Jesus simply because it was the best thing to do with my life, or in Willard’s words, “the best strategy I ever heard of.” He writes about this in one of my favorite passages from the introduction:

Individual Christians still hear Jesus say, “Whoever hears these words of mine and does them is like those intelligent people who build their houses upon rock,” standing firm against every pressure of life [Matt. 7.24-25]. How life giving it would be their understanding of the gospel allowed them simply to reply, “I will do them! I will find out how. I will devote my life to it! This is the best life strategy I ever head of!” and then go off to their fellowship and its teachers, and into their daily life, to learn how to live in his kingdom as Jesus indicated was best.

The Divine Conspiracy, p. xvi

One of the reasons for rereading this book is to see if that idea still resonates with me. Luke ends with the disciples hiding in fear. Acts begins with the disciples proclaiming the Gospel without fear. What happened? After spending three years with Jesus, hearing him teach about the Kingdom of God, did they finally get it? Did they wake up one day and say, “Ah, this is the best way to live our lives!” Is that what compelled them?

In recent years I’ve come to believe that Jesus’ followers were compelled to trust him when they witnessed his resurrection.  That’s what validated the life and teachings of Jesus.  That single event gave Jesus’ followers the confidence to trust him even when he commanded them to love your enemies. If God could raise Jesus from the dead, he can be trusted with anything. Even our own lives. So I agree with Willard, Jesus’ teachings offer the best way to live in this world, but without the resurrection, it’s just ethics. I believe that’s the point Paul is making to the Church in Corinth:

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I’ve decided to read The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard … again. Here’s why:

1. Dallas Willard changed my life:

Well Jesus actually did, but I discovered the Gospel again for the first time through Willard’s book. That was nearly a decade ago. I refer to The Divine Conspiracy often, but haven’t read through the entire book in several years.

2. I’m studying it with a friend:

The impetus has been the recently published, The Divine Conspiracy DVD & Study,with Dallas Willard and John Ortberg. A friend and I have decided to go through this together over coffee during the next several weeks (espressos for me).

3. It’s an opportunity to journal:

During this time I’ll post brief reflections on Tuesdays, based on chapters from Willard’s book ( It’s Wednesday, I know, there wasn’t time to post this yesterday). If you haven’t read The Divine Conspiracy before, I encourage you to get a copy and start yesterday.  Richard Foster says he’ll never recommend a book higher, I agree.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And … love your neighbor as yourself.”

I pastor a church in the suburbs called CrossWalk. We have a saying around our church that we are learning to love well.  It’s our mission and it comes from this simple yet challenging teaching of Jesus.  Scot McKnight refers to this as the  Jesus Creed. Several years ago be began reciting it throughout the day. It transformed his life and eventually led him to write The Jesus Creed.

Since the Jesus Creed is the basis of  CrossWalk’s mission we decided to encourage our community to go through Scot’s companion book 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed during the season of Lent. Each day provides a simple reflection on learning to love well. So far it’s been a good experience. In fact my family is using it everyday. We’re reciting the Jesus Creed with our kids each morning and evening (we’ve even had some fun with it while driving around town).

So if you’re looking for something to add to your Lenten practices this year, there’s still time to grab a copy and join us on our journey. In fact, come by CrossWalk this week if you are in town and I’ll give you a free copy (We gave away 300 copies at CrossWalk the last few weeks). There’s a few books left, but its first come first serve at this point.

Here’s an article by Barbara Brown Taylor on the meaning of Lent. I like her take on how the forty days idea took root in Christian faith & practice. It’s from a 1998 issue of Christian Century, titled Settling for Less, based on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Luke 4:1-13:

Do not bother looking for Lent in your Bible dictionary. There was no such thing in biblical times. There is some evidence that early Christians fasted 40 hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the custom of spending 40 days in prayer and self-denial did not arise until later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith.

When the world did not end as Jesus himself had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves. They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines, remembering their once passionate devotion to God the way they remembered the other enthusiasms of their youth.

Little by little, Christians became devoted to their comforts instead: the soft couch, the flannel sheets, the leg of lamb roasted with rosemary. These things made them feel safe and cared for — if not by God, then by themselves. They decided there was no contradiction between being comfortable and being Christian, and before long it was very hard to pick them out from the population at large. They no longer distinguished themselves by their bold love for one another. They did not get arrested for championing the poor. They blended in. They avoided extremes. They decided to be nice instead of holy, and God moaned out loud.

Hearing that, someone suggested it was time to call Christians back to their senses, and the Bible offered some clues about how to do that. Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness learning to trust the Lord. Elijah spent 40 days there before hearing the still, small voice of God on the same mountain where Moses spent 40 days listening to God give the law. There was also Luke’s story about Jesus’ own 40 days in the wilderness during which he was sorely tested by the devil. It was hard. It was awful. It was necessary, if only for the story. Those of us who believe it have proof that it is humanly possible to remain loyal to God.

So the early church announced a season of Lent, from the old English word lenten, meaning “spring” — not only a reference to the season before Easter, but also an invitation to a springtime for the soul. Forty days to cleanse the system and open the eyes to what remains when all comfort is gone. Forty days to remember what it is like to live by the grace of God alone and not by what we can supply for ourselves.

I think of it as an Outward Bound for the soul. No one has to sign up for it, but if you do then you give up the illusion that you are in control of your life. You place yourself in the hands of strangers who ask you to do foolhardy things, like walk backwards over a precipice with nothing but a rope around your waist or climb a sheer rock face with your fingers and toes. But none of these is the real test, because while you are doing them you have plenty of people around and lunch in a cooler.

The real test comes when you go solo. The strangers put you out all by yourself in the middle of nowhere and wish you luck for the next 24 hours. That is when you find out who you are. That is when you find out what you really miss and what you are really afraid of. Some people dream about their favorite food. Some long for a safe room with a door to lock and others just wish they had a pillow, but they all find out what their pacifiers are — the habits, substances or surroundings they use to comfort themselves, to block out pain and fear.

Without those things they are suddenly exposed, like someone addicted to painkillers whose prescription has just run out. It is hard. It is awful. It is necessary, to encounter the world without anesthesia, to find out what life is like with no comfort but God. I am convinced that 99 percent of us are addicted to something, whether it is eating, shopping, blaming or taking care of other people. The simplest definition of an addiction is anything we use to fill the empty place inside of us that belongs to God alone.

That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.

To enter the wilderness is to leave them behind, and nothing is too small to give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For 40 days, simply pay attention to how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens when it happens. What is going on when you start craving a Mars bar? Are you hungry? Well, what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see what you find out.

Chances are you will hear a voice in your head that keeps warning you what will happen if you give up your pacifier. “You’ll starve. You’ll go nuts. You won’t be you anymore.” If that does not work, the voice will move to level two: “That’s not a pacifier. That’s a power tool. Can’t you tell the difference?” If you do not fall for that one, there is always level three: “If God really loves you, you can do whatever you want. Why waste your time on this dumb exercise?”

If you do not know whom that voice belongs to, read Luke’s story again. Then tell the devil to get lost and decide what you will do for Lent. Better yet, decide whose you will be. Worship the Lord your God and serve no one else. Expect great things, from God and from yourself. Believe that everything is possible. Why should any of us settle for less?