Spiritual Disciplines + Practices

One way Christians have spoken about embracing the journey of learning how to follow Jesus - to be Christian - is to incorporate routine spiritual disciplines and/or practices into your life...

What are spiritual disciplines?

• The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us. ... They are God’s means of grace.” ~ Richard Foster, Celebration of Disciplines
• Henri Nouwen saw the disciplines as a means “to create space to meet with God that you other wise had not planned on.
• M. Robert Mulholland described them as “things that intrude into our lives to align us with God’s purpose.”
• My favorite description…Douglas Rumford said they were “a means to develop soul memory for reflexive spiritual responsiveness.”

Another way of referring to the disciplines is to call them spiritual practices. Spiritual practices are exactly what their name suggests; they’re ways to be deliberate about matters of the soul. A spiritual practice is a tool for becoming aware of God within the normalcy of life—it injects the sacred into elements that could otherwise seem just everyday.

Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, compiled a list of spiritual disciplines + practices he believe were modeled in the life of Christ. He also placed these disciplines into two categories: the disciplines of abstinence (or “letting go”) and the disciplines of activity.

Disciplines of Letting Go

These practices allow us to relinquish something in order to gain something new. We abstain from the busyness of life. We stop talking for a while to hear from God. We give up buying another material possession to experience God more fully. First Peter 2:11 warns us to “abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” Identify what is keeping you from experiencing greater strength and perspective.

Do you talk too much and end up gossiping or complaining?

Are possessions controlling you?

Are you too worried about what others think?

Are you, at times, overcome with anxiety?

Are you usually stressed and easily angered?

Here are some of the disciplines that will help you LET GO and become more dependent on God.

Solitude—Spending time alone to be with God. Find a quiet place to be alone with God for a period of time. Use the Bible as a source of companionship with God. Listen to Him. Remain alone and still.

Silence—Removing noisy distractions to hear from God. Find a quiet place away from noise to hear from God. Write your thoughts and impressions as God directs your heart. Silence can occur even in the midst of noise and distraction. But you must focus your attention on your soul. This could mean learning to practice some forms of meditation; but it could also mean changing your life is rather simple ways…talking less or talking only when necessary and in it’s place quietly thinking about God. And it could mean turning off the radio, the music, the podcast, and the TV.

Fasting—Skipping a meal(s) to find greater nourishment from God. Choose a period of time to go without food. Drink water and, if necessary, take vitamin supplements. Feel the pain of having an empty stomach and depend on God to fill you with His grace.

Frugality—Learning to live with less money and still meet your basic needs. Before buying something new, choose to go without or pick a less expensive alternative that will serve your basic needs. Live a simple, focused life.

Secrecy—Avoiding self-promotion, practice serving God without others knowing. Give in secret. Serve “behind the scenes” in a ministry that you are assured few will know about.

Sacrifice—Giving of our resources beyond what seems reasonable to remind us of our dependence on Christ. Choose to give your time or finances to the Lord beyond what you normally would.

Disciplines of Activity

Dallas Willard writes, “The disciplines of abstinence must be counter-balanced and supplemented by disciplines of engagement (activity).” It’s choosing to participate in activities that nurture our souls and strengthen us for the journey ahead.

Study—Spending time reading the Scriptures and meditating on its meaning and importance to our lives. We are nourished by the Word because it is our source of spiritual strength. Choose a time and a place to feed from the Word of God regularly.

Worship—Offering praise and adoration to God. His praise should continually be on our lips and in our thoughts. Keep praise ever before you as you think of God’s mighty deeds in your life.

Song —Scripture has many references to singing praise and prayer to the Lord. There‘s something significant about the fact that whenever we gather, historically, God's people sing. It’s a weekly practice for most of us—even if you don’t sing, you’ve still shared an experience with a group of people, and that is at the heart of what happens when we sing: sharing an experience with God and one another. It’s a profoundly countercultural practice. Song can also to be done on your own. Read psalms, hymns, or spiritual songs from the Scriptures; or sing along with a favorite praise song or hymn.

Prayer—Talking to and listening to God about your relationship with Him and about the concerns of others. Find time to pray to God without the distraction of people or things. Combine your prayer time with meditation on the Scriptures in order to focus on Christ.

Fellowship—This is mutual caring and ministry for one another within the body of Christ…meet regularly with other Christians to find ways to minister to others. Pray for each other. Encourage one another.

Confession—Regularly confess your sins to the Lord and other trusted individuals. As often as you are aware of sin in your life, confess it to the Lord and to those you may have offended.

Submission—Humbling yourself before God and others while seeking accountability in relationships. Find faithful brothers or sisters in Christ who can lovingly hold you accountable for your actions and growth in Christ.

The Secular + Sacred Combined
The spiritual disciplines + practices are a tool for becoming aware of God within the normalcy of life—it injects the sacred into elements that could otherwise seem just everyday. They make room for God the Holy Spirit to fill us and shape us in simple and spiritually refreshing ways. So in applying just some of these spiritual disciplines + practices, we find that the lines can be blurred between those things spiritual and what is secular.

Incorporating these disciplines + practices into our daily routine reminds us: 
Gratitude can happen when we’re mowing the lawn.
Worship and grocery shopping are compatible.
God can be pursued and experienced during your daily commute.

Superabounding Grace

Hello friends, as we study through the tremendous text of Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome, we are continually reminded of the grace of God. He seems to mention it at almost every turn as he writes about God's good news for all of humanity.

In our text from this past Sunday, Romans ch. 5, Paul mentions grace 5 different times. My favorite mentioning of grace in chapter 5 is verse 20, "The law was brought in so that the trespass (offense or sin) might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased (or superabounded) all the more!"

What it would it look like if grace was superabounding in our lives?

Grace is often misunderstood, misapplied, and, therefore, MISSED! And it's so unfortunate because to miss part or all of grace is to miss part or all of God. 

Grace can often be misunderstood as something scandalous and sinfully permissive; and it can also be misapplied by thinking of grace only terms of pardoning sin and not about enabling us to live rightly.

Dallard Willard once said, "grace is God acting in our lives to bring about what we do not deserve and cannot accomplish on our own." I love that definition of grace; but I equally love what he said next: "but we are not passive in this process. We are commanded to put off the old person and put on the new. We are told to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18)." 

In essence, grace is about pardoning guilt and about inviting/empowering us into right living.

As followers of Jesus, there are many wonderful things for us to do, and, though we cannot do it ourselves, they will not be done for us. We must do them. As recipients of grace we are empowered to do whatever it is we need to do to increasingly take on Christ's character and live, in his power, as one of his followers.

May the grace of God abound in our lives. Instead of sin and death, may the grace of God reign in our lives leading to true life in the here and now (Romans 5:21). 

May trust and belief replace our cynicism and disbelief. 

May gentleness and encouragement replace our anger and hurtfulness. 

May fidelity and love replace our selfishness and greed. 

May understanding and tolerance replace our impatience. 

May hope replace our fear. 

May thoughtfulness replace our disregard. 

And may true joy replace our wallowing in shallowness.

Wow. Imagine how resting in and relying upon the superabounding grace found in Christ would reshape our everyday lives.

May we courageously go into the way of grace; may we encourage as many others to follow as we possible can.

Get into Heaven Before You Die!

Dallas Willard's book, The Divine Conspiracy, has been an extremely helpful and formative book for me.  Willard paints a beautiful picture of Kingdom of God and what Kingdom-life, in the here and now, looks like. 

"When Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “on earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer, we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence...Within his overarching dominion, God has created us and has given each of us, like him, a range of will – beginning from our minds and bodies and extending outward.... His intent is for us to learn to mesh our kingdom with the kingdoms of others. Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But if we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rules with God’s. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule, of God." ~ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Here's a clip from John Ortberg interview with  Dallas Willard at last year's Catalyst West about what the church is getting wrong today. In a nutshell, Willard says we're getting the Gospel wrong.  Many people view the message of Christianity is getting into heaven when you die; Willard argues that Christianity is about getting into heaven before we die...

“Any new testament scholar would tell you, I believe, “What did Jesus preach?” They would say the Kingdom of God.  That’s not quite right, because what He preached was, the availability of the Kingdom of God; to everyone, where ever they were, and whoever they were. And so he announces this, and by His own presence makes it available.  And once you get that idea, you read the Gospel and say, ‘Hey that’s what’s happening....The important thing to understand is the Kingdom of God, is God in action.  That happens to turn out to be the same thing as Grace. So Grace now becomes a part of our lives. And we experience it with us, by faith.  We have to learn how to do this, because we’re usually in charge of what’s happening, and we have to learn how to turn loose of that, and how to live with God being in charge.”  ~ Dallas Willard