M2: SUMMARY

We’ve now moved through two full modules of the Regnare Project.

In the first module, we talked a lot about the Kingdom of God and the life to the full that Jesus offers to every person who would take up their cross and follow him.

In the second module, we talked about the core regular practices that bring us into the flow of God’s transforming power, that make us people of kingdom priority and kingdom community.

Let’s walk through together what we’ve heard so far in Module 1:

  • SESSION 1: We want to be people who live life to the full, that living life like Jesus did is possible, and that every step we take toward that life is worth it, and that it should feel like rest for our souls.
  • SESSION 2: We want to be people who live like the kingdom of God is at hand, and that it is never in trouble, and therefore we are never in trouble.
  • SESSION 3: We want to be people who are alive to the work of God all around us all the time, just like Jesus was.
  • SESSION 4: We want to be people who bear the image of God faithfully, representing the kingdom of God in the world, knowing that what we think, say, and do matters.
  • SESSION 5: We want to be people who know that the coming of the kingdom is a mystery—that it grows all by itself, and that if we want it to grow in us, we have to plant it. The kingdom always starts small, but because of God’s power and faithfulness, he will cause it to eventually overshadow every other thing in our lives.
  • SESSION 6: We want to be people who know the character of the king—that we can always come to the mercy of God no matter how our day has gone.
  • SESSION 7: We want to be people who embrace the reality of who God says we are: those whom God loves, those in whom God dwells and delights.
  • SESSION 8: We want to be people of that walk in prayerful expectation, watching for where and how God is at work in our world and then joining him there.

This is the kind of life Jesus is offering to us. So how do we begin to enter that life? Module 2:

  • SESSION 1 and 2: our pattern comes from Paul: taking off the old self, being renewed in hearts and minds, and putting on the new self, created to be like God. This process becomes the most important thing to us, people who recognize the availability of the kingdom for our lives right now—that’s the most important thing. And also recognizing that we only enter this kind of life together. Kingdom priority, kingdom community.
  • SESSION 3 and 4: then we talked about how taking off of the old self works: pruning distractions that come from outside. Where we set our minds determines our destiny, so we want to train ourselves to prune out the distractions that keep us from the kingdom calling in the moment. And then we talked about pruning the habits of mind that keep us away from the rhythms of the kingdom.
  • SESSION 5 and 6: next we turn toward that transformation of our hearts and minds, looking deep within for the desires that drive us. We are people who do what we want, and our wants are a key spiritual battleground and an area for spiritual (re)formation. We talked about discovering and implementing ways we can cultivate a desire for God and his kingdom that can sustain us when we are tired, dry, or bored, or empty.
  • SESSION 7, 8, and 9: then we spent our last few weeks on the very core of the Regnare Project, how we put on the new self, and how that happens in the real actual  moments of our ordinary days, or not at all. We talked about how we say yes moment by moment to the kingdom of God that is at hand, learning to keep our attention on him moment by moment, how we listen for the still small voice of God in those moments, and how to train ourselves to obey what we hear from him in those moments. Putting on the new self which is created by God in true righteousness and holiness happens in the small ordinary moments of our day. That’s where all the magic is!