Practicing the Way

Having read “Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become Like Him. Do as He Did” by John Mark Comer (WaterBrook, 2024, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-593-44615-9), I found the book to be both theologically coherent and pastorally grounded (I’m aware of Comer’s views or questions about Penal Substitutionary Atonement). Across its 289 pages, Comer offers what is less a theory of discipleship than a lived theology of union through practice—an apprenticeship of presence, formation, and participation patterned after the life of Christ. What first drew me in was his ability to speak from experience rather than abstraction. He begins with the crisis of formation that pervades modern discipleship—our habits, devices, and culture quietly molding us—and then methodically reintroduces what it means to abide in Christ as the central reality of faith. His writing blends clarity and candor; at no point does it feel instructional in the academic sense, but personal, persuasive, and devotional in tone.

By the time I reached the closing chapters (pp. 251–289), where Comer reflects on surrender and the joy of taking up one’s cross, the structure of his vision had become unmistakably clear: apprenticeship is the visible outworking of union with the indwelling Christ. The pages that lingered with me most—particularly pp. 183–210, on crafting a personal Rule of Life—captured his distinctive gift for translating ancient Christian wisdom into the language of a hurried modern world. WaterBrook’s publication serves this vision well: the book’s design, typography, and layout mirror the unhurried clarity of its message. Reading it cover to cover left me convinced that Comer’s project succeeds where many modern works on spirituality falter—it reclaims discipleship as a rhythm of grace, making the life of Christ not merely studied, but practiced.

Introduction

John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way unfolds from a single conviction—that discipleship to Jesus is not intellectual assent but participatory union. Drawing from John 15:4-5, he insists that the life of the believer is one of abiding: “Abide in me, and I in you.” Union with Christ, in this vision, is a lived reality wherein the branches draw constant life from the Vine. Comer traces this abiding rhythm through the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ intimacy with the Father—His pre-dawn prayer in solitude (Mark 1:35), His retreat to desolate places (Luke 5:16), His invitation to the weary, “Come to me…and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). These moments, he argues, are not peripheral devotions but the very pattern of divine-human communion. To be with Jesus thus becomes the foundation of transformation; Scripture, prayer, and stillness are not obligations but the Spirit’s chosen means of participation in the indwelling Christ (Ephesians 3:16-17). Comer presents this as the antidote to the hurried fragmentation of modern life: to dwell with Christ in every ordinary hour is to let eternal life begin now (John 17:3).

From this center, the book expands outward—becoming like Him and doing as He did—each movement expressing the dynamism of union. Comer turns to Romans 8:29—“to be conformed to the image of His Son”—to describe formation as the Spirit’s slow work of reshaping our desires and habits. He recalls Paul’s confession, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), as the interior grammar of apprenticeship: not imitation by effort, but transformation by participation. From this inner likeness flows outward action—obedience born of love—as believers learn to “walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6). Comer’s Rule of Life—structured rhythms of Sabbath (Genesis 2:2–3; Mark 2:27), prayer (Luke 11:1–2), fasting (Matthew 6:16–18), generosity (Acts 2:44–47), and witness (Matthew 28:19–20)—forms a trellis upon which divine life grows. Each discipline is an embodied confession of union: the daily, deliberate “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). His purpose is therefore both pastoral and incarnational—to recover discipleship as the practical outworking of the believer’s participation in the life of the Son, so that the presence once confined to Galilee might now inhabit every disciple’s table, calendar, and vocation.

Book Review

Be with Jesus — The Abiding Center

John Mark Comer begins Practicing the Way by naming what he calls the crisis of formation that underlies modern discipleship. Every person, he observes, is already being formed—by habits, devices, and culture—and the question is never whether we are apprentices but to whom. Citing Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” he reminds readers that formation is inevitable; the only choice is its direction. The first act of apprenticeship, therefore, is presence: to live in conscious, moment-by-moment awareness of the risen Christ. Drawing from John 15:4–5, “Abide in me, and I in you… apart from me you can do nothing,” Comer describes union not as mystical vagueness but as relational participation—the life of the vine flowing through its branches. Presence becomes the antidote to distraction, echoing Colossians 3:1–3, where Paul commands believers to “set your minds on things above, where Christ is.” For Comer, this abiding awareness is the living root from which every other dimension of discipleship grows.

He sketches this presence through the practices of silence, solitude, and Sabbath, each a return to simplicity and unhurried communion. Pointing to Jesus’ own rhythm—“rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and prayed” (Mark 1:35) and “withdrew to desolate places to pray” (Luke 5:16)—Comer interprets such passages as invitations into the cadence of the Son’s life with the Father. Sabbath, he notes, is not merely cessation but participation in God’s delight (Genesis 2:2–3; Mark 2:27). Through these patterns the restless soul learns the quiet steadiness of Christ’s own peace, the rest promised in Matthew 11:28–29, “Come to me… and you will find rest for your souls.” Thus the disciplines are not mechanical techniques but openings—ways of aligning time, body, and attention to the indwelling presence of the Spirit (Ephesians 3:16–17). Presence becomes both the ground and the grammar of apprenticeship: life lived in continual recollection of Christ within, until every ordinary moment hums with the awareness, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Become like Him — Formation as Participation

The second movement of Practicing the Way deepens Comer’s theology of union through transformation, grounding it firmly in Scripture’s vision of sanctification as participation in divine life. He begins with Romans 8:29, reminding that those whom God foreknew “He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Spiritual formation, Comer explains, is the Spirit’s patient re-creation of our interior structure—desires, instincts, and reflexes—so that Christ’s likeness becomes not merely admired but embodied. He contrasts the cultural “default setting” of formation (Ephesians 2:2–3, being shaped by “the course of this world”) with the deliberate yielding of the self to the Spirit’s renewing power (Romans 12:2). Borrowing Paul’s image of transformation—“we all… are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18)—Comer calls this the automation of love: a condition in which virtue flows freely because the heart’s circuitry has been rewired by grace. Formation, then, is not moral training but the slow artistry of the Spirit who reorders the mind and affections until Christ Himself becomes the believer’s native impulse.

Here the book reaches its richest theological clarity. Comer insists that apprenticeship is not the pursuit of moral polish but the participation in divine life, echoing Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Union, he argues, is not static but kinetic—a living reciprocity between the indwelling Christ and the responsive disciple (Philippians 2:12–13). His language of habitus—the re-patterning of the self through repeated practices—recalls the early church’s exhortation to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7–8) and the letter to the Hebrews where maturity comes through “constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14). “You become what you practice,” Comer writes, translating this apostolic principle into the language of modern psychology. For him, grace does not abolish effort; it sanctifies it, transforming discipline into delight. Every repeated act of obedience becomes participation in the Spirit’s reshaping of the soul, until love itself becomes instinctive—the spontaneous overflow of a heart fully united to Christ.

Do as He Did — Action as the Overflow of Union

The third arc of Practicing the Way turns outward. Having dwelt with Christ and been reshaped in His likeness, the apprentice now acts in His pattern. Comer anchors this movement in 1 John 2:6, “Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” The pattern of Jesus’ life—healing the sick (Matthew 10:7–8), proclaiming good news (Mark 1:14–15), welcoming the stranger (Luke 14:12–14), feeding the hungry (Mark 6:41–44), and confronting injustice (Luke 4:18–19)—becomes, in Comer’s framework, not a distant ideal but a practical vocation. To do as He did is the fruit of abiding union; the Spirit who indwells believers is the same Spirit who empowered the incarnate Son to serve and to love unto death (Philippians 2:5–8). This participation in Christ’s mission is not an optional extension of discipleship but its natural culmination, the visible expression of the inner communion described in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.”

Comer’s tone throughout this section is quietly pastoral rather than triumphalist. The disciple’s deeds, he writes, are the spontaneous overflow of divine love—“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Acts of hospitality (Romans 12:13), generosity (2 Corinthians 9:7), mercy (Luke 6:36), and proclamation (Matthew 28:19–20) are not strategies but sacraments of communion, extensions of Christ’s own compassion into the fractures of the world. Comer deliberately avoids abstraction, stressing small fidelity—the faithfulness of the table, the neighbor, the parish, and the street. In his hands, the imitation of Christ becomes a humble realism: discipleship lived not in spectacle but in constancy, not in spiritual heroics but in the quiet endurance of everyday love, echoing Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

A Rule of Life — The Trellis of Grace

The practical centerpiece of Practicing the Way—and the heart of Comer’s legacy—is his recovery of the Rule of Life. He portrays it as a “trellis” supporting the vine of devotion, echoing John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” A trellis, he explains, does not cause growth but provides the structure through which life can flourish. Every life, he argues, already operates by a rule—habits and patterns that silently shape desire. Citing 1 Corinthians 9:24–27, Comer urges believers to live with intentional spiritual rhythm, “running in such a way as to obtain the prize,” rather than by unexamined chaos. To craft a conscious Rule is to align one’s time, body, relationships, work, and rest with the Way of Jesus, forming a daily liturgy of abiding. In this sense, the Rule becomes a living exegesis of Ephesians 5:15–16, “Look carefully then how you walk… making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Comer’s Rule integrates nine enduring practices—Sabbath, solitude, prayer, fasting, Scripture, community, generosity, service, and witness—each drawn from the pattern of Jesus’ own life. He references Mark 2:27 to show Sabbath as divine gift, Mark 1:35 for solitude, Luke 11:1–2 for prayer, and Matthew 6:16–18 for fasting. Scripture meditation reflects Psalm 1:2, community echoes Acts 2:42, generosity draws from 2 Corinthians 9:7, service from John 13:14–15, and witness from Matthew 28:19–20. Each practice is not moral effort but participation in divine life—habits that make space for grace. Comer likens this to the “training” Paul commends in 1 Timothy 4:7–8, “Train yourself for godliness.” He advises small beginnings, communal accountability (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10), and seasonal reevaluation, emphasizing that the Rule must remain dynamic and life-giving. In his portrayal, practice becomes participation—the doing of what Jesus did, not as mimicry but as manifestation of shared life, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

A. What Is a Rule of Life? — A Garden Trellis for the Soul

Comer defines a Rule of Life as a pattern of practices and relational rhythms that help the disciple remain in abiding union with Jesus. The term rule comes from the Latin regula—the same root as “trellis”—a frame that guides a living vine. Drawing from John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” he teaches that the trellis does not make the plant grow but simply supports the life already pulsing within it. Every person, Comer insists, already lives by a rule, usually unspoken and chaotic; the task of apprenticeship is to make that rule conscious, ordered, and Christ-centered. The Rule is not legalism but love structured into time: a design for flourishing that creates the conditions for grace to circulate freely. Comer’s goal is simple—turn spiritual aspiration into embodied rhythm.

B. Why a Rule Matters — Guarding Habits, Guiding Loves

In this section Comer explains why structure is essential for transformation. Our habits, he says, always disciple us; therefore, the follower of Jesus must craft habits that lead toward Him rather than away. He cites Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” and insists that renewal must be ritualized in daily and weekly routines. The Rule guards what he calls the “five centers of formation”—time, body, relationships, work, and rest—helping each conform to Christ’s pattern. He reminds that even Jesus lived by rhythm: prayer at dawn (Mark 1:35), work by day, rest by night, and Sabbath joy (Luke 4:16; Mark 2:27). The Rule thus becomes a “spiritual architecture” that protects attention from the tyranny of distraction and aligns affection with the kingdom of God.

C. The Nine Core Practices — How to Live the Way of Jesus

Comer then outlines nine specific practices—each modeled in the life of Christ and rooted in Scripture—through which disciples learn to remain in His love:

1. Sabbath – A full day each week for worship, rest, delight, and restoration (Genesis 2:2–3; Exodus 20:8–11; Mark 2:27).
2. Solitude – Regular withdrawal from noise to meet the Father in secret (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16).
3. Prayer – Both set times and spontaneous communion (Luke 11:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17).
4. Fasting – Periodic abstention from food or comfort to sharpen dependence on God (Matthew 6:16–18).
5. Scripture – Daily reading and meditation on God’s Word (Psalm 1:2; 2 Timothy 3:16–17).
6. Community – Covenant relationships that nurture confession, accountability, and joy (Acts 2:42–47; Hebrews 10:24–25).
7. Generosity – Open-handed stewardship of resources (Luke 12:33–34; 2 Corinthians 9:7–8).
8. Service – Humble acts of love patterned after Christ washing His disciples’ feet (John 13:14–15; Mark 10:45).
9. Witness – Sharing the good news of the kingdom in word and deed (Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 1:8).

Comer encourages readers to begin modestly—perhaps one or two practices at a time—so that devotion remains joyful rather than burdensome. Over time, these disciplines become what he calls “the automation of love,” habits through which divine life flows naturally.

D. How to Build Your Own Rule — Small, Simple, Sustainable

After presenting the nine practices, Comer gives a step-by-step process for crafting a personal or communal Rule.

1. Name your season of life. Be realistic about capacity and calling (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
2. Discern your loves. Identify what draws you toward or away from Christ (Matthew 6:21).
3. Choose a few core practices. Focus on quality, not quantity.
4. Schedule them concretely. Block time for Scripture, prayer, Sabbath, and fellowship—structure your calendar around abiding, not activity.
5. Share it in community. Let trusted friends hold you accountable (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10).
6. Review it seasonally. Adapt your Rule as life changes; allow it to breathe like a living organism.

Comer urges that a good Rule will be honest, humble, and flexible. He compares it to “training wheels for love,” helping disciples learn balance until grace becomes second nature.

E. The Rule in Community — Practicing the Way Together

Comer insists the Rule is not meant for private asceticism but for shared apprenticeship. Drawing from Acts 2:42, he envisions small groups of believers adopting common rhythms—shared meals, prayer, service, and Scripture—so that spiritual formation becomes mutual rather than solitary. The church, he writes, must be re-imagined as “a community of practice,” not merely a weekly event. Through communal Rule, disciples help one another stay with Jesus when individual resolve falters, embodying Hebrews 3:13, “Encourage one another daily… that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

F. The Fruits of a Rule — Freedom, Joy, and Grace

The Rule’s purpose, Comer concludes, is not control but communion. When lived with sincerity, it yields the freedom of rhythm rather than rigidity: unhurried time, deeper relationships, and a heart more attuned to Christ’s peace. Echoing Galatians 5:25, he writes that a Spirit-shaped Rule allows us to “keep in step with the Spirit.” Grace flows through structure, just as a river flows through its banks. The final fruit is joy—the same joy Jesus promised in John 15:11, “that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” For Comer, the Rule of Life is therefore nothing less than the framework for union through practice—a pattern of days through which divine life takes form in the disciple’s own flesh, habits, and hours.

Take up Your Cross — The Cost and the Joy

The final chapters of Practicing the Way return to the paradox of grace and surrender. To follow the Way, Comer writes, is to take up the cross—the surrender of autonomy, the acceptance of limitation, the willingness to die daily. He grounds this in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” True apprenticeship, he explains, involves the daily relinquishing of self-rule in order to live under Christ’s gentle lordship. Comer contrasts the cost of discipleship with what he calls the cost of non-discipleship, echoing Matthew 16:24–26, where Jesus warns that gaining the world at the expense of one’s soul is ultimate loss. Refusal to follow, Comer reminds, exacts its own ruin—a slow spiritual decay beneath the illusion of freedom. Yet the cross, rightly seen, is not mere burden but the narrow gate to joy: “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

For Comer, the cross-shaped life is entrance into communion with the Crucified and Risen One. He points to Romans 6:4–5, where baptism symbolizes dying and rising with Christ, and to Philippians 3:10, where Paul longs “to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings.” The way of surrender thus becomes participation in resurrection life—death as doorway to renewal. Comer writes tenderly of failure and of beginning again, echoing Lamentations 3:22–23, “His mercies are new every morning.” Grace, he insists, is the atmosphere of discipleship; the apprentice lives not by perfection but by perseverance within mercy. To take up the cross is therefore not an act of grim austerity but an awakening to joy—the gladness of sharing Christ’s life and love, as He Himself declared: “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).

Stylistic and Pastoral Distinctives

Comer writes as one who walks the road he describes. His words are pastoral but unpretentious, grounded more in Scripture than in style. He speaks as a disciple still learning, echoing Paul’s own confession: “Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect, but I press on.” That honesty makes his teaching believable. Discipleship, as he presents it, is not a system to master but a life to grow into. His tone follows the gentleness of Christ’s own call: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me.” Formation, for Comer, is not performance but participation—a shared life of grace, one step at a time.

Practicing the Way holds together the truth of theology and the substance of ordinary days. Comer writes not as a theorist, but as one learning to live what he teaches. Like Paul, he disciplines himself so that his life confirms his words (1 Cor. 9:27). Yet he does not harden into rule; he remains open to the frailty and growth that mark every soul beginning the spiritual path. His counsel reflects James’s call to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (Jas. 1:22). When he turns to the older wisdom of silence, simplicity, and stability, it is not nostalgia but obedience—“whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17). His vision is not of theory but of practice, where faith is formed in the quiet labor of ordinary days.

Synthesis — Union by Action

At its heart, Practicing the Way is a theology of union expressed through practice—a life shaped by the pattern of Scripture. To be with Jesus is to enter the stillness of contemplative union: “Abide in Me, and I in you… apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4–5). To become like Him is the work of transformation, “to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). And to do as He did is participation in His life: “Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6). These movements—presence, formation, and mission—trace the rhythm of divine life within the believer. The Rule of Life, then, is not a structure by which one ascends, but a posture by which one abides. It orders time so that grace might find room to dwell—“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). It is the pattern of grace meeting the hours, the sanctification of the ordinary.

Comer’s vision binds the ancient and the near at hand. He joins Benedict’s ordered stability with the immediacy of evangelical faith. His counsel echoes Paul’s charge, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17), and James’s reminder that faith finds its wholeness in action (Jas. 2:22). In reclaiming the discipline of ordered life, Comer restores the nearness of obedience—prayer given form in the day’s rhythm, mercy practiced among one’s own, love carried quietly through habit. Practicing the Way becomes the daily embodiment of Christ’s life within His people: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Union, as Comer describes it, is not a theory to be understood but a grace to be lived—faith traced through time, until every act bears the likeness of its Lord.

Conclusion

Practicing the Way stands as one of the most lucid contemporary guides to embodied discipleship. Its language of apprenticeship re-enchants daily obedience, grounding spirituality in imitation that flows from indwelling. The Rule of Life it commends can be adopted, adapted, or expanded, but its essence remains: to practice the life of Jesus until His life becomes our own.

If the modern church has often separated belief from being, Comer’s work reunites them. To practice the Way is to live our union with Christ openly—thinking, resting, working, and loving as extensions of His presence in the world.