M. Robert Mulholland Jr. - The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self

NOW WITH STUDY GUIDE

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com

Expanded edition 2016 by Gweneth Lynn Mulholland

Previous edition 2006 by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Pressis the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are the authors own translation.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

The publisher cannot verify the accuracy or functionality of website URLs used in this book beyond the date of publication.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Interior design: Beth McGill
Images: pauloribau / iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-9374-4 (digital)

ISBN 978-0-8308-4618-4 (print)

This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

For Lynn,

beloved companion on the journey

Gracious and loving God, in love you spoke me into being before the foundation of the world. Your love has enfolded and indwelled me through all the winding paths of my life, and your love has prepared me for this book. Help me so to open myself to your indwelling love that this book may be a place of transforming encounter with you. Amen.

I suspect you are reading this book because the idea of a deeper journey touched a chord within you. You may have been on the Christian journey for some time or perhaps you are a newcomer to life in Christ. Whichever the case, you may have reached a point in your walk with God where your relationship with God has become somewhat stale. The things that excited and stimulated you at the first stages of your journey have become routine. You hunger for a deeper, richer, fuller life with God.

Once I asked the pastor of a large, vigorous, dynamic, growing church with a strong emphasis on the deeper life in Christand a church that confirmed fifty to seventy-five new members each weekwhere these people were coming from. His response surprised me. He told me that almost all of these people had begun their journey in Christ in an even larger, more vigorous, more dynamic church whose worship was leading-edge contemporary, whose focus was strongly charismatic and whose corporate life centered in highly emotional expressions of faith in God. These people would stay in this church for about two to three years and then the novelty and excitement would become ritualized and dry for them. They began to hunger, in his words, for something deeper. They began to sense that there was more to the Christian life.

You may have asked yourself, Isnt there more to the Christian life than being active in a Christian community, affirming a certain set of beliefs, adopting a particular behavior pattern? You may have wondered about the purpose of the Christian life. As you probably know well, this line of questions brings forth a multitude of answers. This multiplicity itself reveals a great lack of clarity on the nature of the Christian life.

The biblical answer to the question is: To be like Jesus. You may be thinking that this is pretty ambiguous, and given the diversity of ideas of what being like Jesus entails, you would be right. For instance, is the recent fad of What Would Jesus Do? with its jewelry, clothing, Bible covers and bracelets the way to be like Jesus? Or is there much more to it than this? Just what does it mean to be like Jesus? Lets investigate some of the biblical indicators.