NRHSpiritual Disciplines
- It takes less time than you think to start seeing the fruit of discipline, but more time than you think to completely uproot bad habits.
- Start slow, don't bite off more than you can chew.
- Community is essential for my success in being a disciplined person.
- Being willing to learn from people wiser than myself is a non-negotiable.
- Just showing up is half the battle.
- Prayer - communicating with God (Matt. 6:9)
- Meditation - focusing on God and his will (Phil. 4:8)
- Fasting - a reminder of the source of all nourishment (Luke 5:35)
- Study - careful attention the the reality that God reveals to us, especially through Holy Scripture (Luke 2:46)
- Simplicity - seeking God's Kingdom first (Matt. 6:33)
- Submission - placing God's will above one's own (Luke 22:42)
- Solitude - withdrawing from the world to spend time with God (Matt. 14:23)
- Service - supportive action toward others (Mark 10:45)
- Confession - acknowledging one's sin with and to others in the community of faith (James 5:16)
- Guidance - giving and receiving direction from others along the journey with Jesus (Acts 15:8)
- Celebration - taking joy is what God has done (1 Cor 5:8)
- Worship - giving God glory through attitudes and actions (1 Cor. 14:26)
- is ignorant of God's ways
- is arrogant concerning his place in the universe
- is busy making his own plans
- constantly invites noise into his life
- denies his sin
- is attracted to idols
3 Biblical reasons memorizing Bible verses is essential
I’m convinced we act out of our most deeply held beliefs.
So, before I was ready to commit to a daily habit of memorizing Bible verses, I had to really buy in to the importance of doing so. Honestly, it’s hard. It takes time and effort, so I know I’m not going to follow through if I don’t really think it’s worth it.
Of course, I accept the Bible as authoritative in matters of faith and practice, so I had to see what the Bible had to teach me. Do I really need to make memorizing the Scriptures a regular part of my discipleship? Just a cursory study convinced me that yes, memorizing bible verses is essential.
Christian spiritual growth: the one discipline that can change everything
Of all the spiritual disciplines, which is the most important discipline for Christian spiritual growth?
For the longest time if someone would ask me that question, I would answer “prayer” without hesitation. After all, prayer forms the basic building block of our relationship with God; it’s how we talk to him. For many of us, prayer is how we came to commit our lives to radical discipleship.
A close second for me would have been simply reading the Bible.
What if I told you it wasn’t prayer, or even simple Bible reading was the most important for Christian spiritual growth? What if I told you it wasnt any of the 12 spiritual disciplines as we usually talk about them?
The lost practice of mental discipline
One of the biggest obstacles for seriously following Jesus in our hyper-connected world is a simple lack of mental discipline, otherwise known as focus and attention span.
Culturally, we’ve succumbed to the temptations of constant distraction and whimsy. If we are not “engaged” (by which we too often actually mean “entertained”) by whatever “content” we are “consuming” we simply move on.
In other words, when it comes to thinking, we tend to give up when the going gets tough.
This makes sustained, deep reflection rare for lots of us. It makes singularly focused worship even more rare, because we’ve abandoned any idea of worship as “the work of the people.” Instead, worship must seem to be (for the “audience,” anyways) effortless.
The result is that we settle for shallow worship, surface-level teaching, and stunt our own spiritual growth.
Yet the Bible teaches us that we must train and discipline our minds (2 Cor. 10:5; Rom. 12:2), and that we know God when we take the time to ponder him and his word (Psalm 1, Phil. 4:8, etc). We are to wrestle with our faith, which necessarily takes time and effort.
How can you get better at sustained mental engagement?
You have to practice.
Take a Bible verse or passage, set a timer on your phone for five minutes, and think about that verse, and nothing else. Consider its meaning, application, context, etc. Memorize it. When your thoughts wander return to your passage. Do this every day for a week. Then up your time to 10 minutes. Do this until you can meditate on a single short verse or idea for 20 minutes.
You can also apply this to your corporate worship time. Make the effort to focus on the sermon and the words you are singing. Take note when your mind begins to wander and do not let it! Bring it back to the idea or topic at hand. Do not allow yourself to become distracted by friends, your phone, shiny graphics on the screens.
The important thing to is to be self-aware enough to realize when you are becoming distracted, and then exercise discipline to bring your mind back into focus.
When you have this kind of self-control, you’ll find that you’re able to think more clearly, resist temptation more effectively, and follow Jesus more wholly.
Keeping track of your sins
In the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the saint lays out a thirty-day program for discipleship, generally meant to be completed as part of a secluded retreat. The first week was devoted to moving the person being discipled toward a genuine sorrow over their sin, as well as beginning to overcome it.
As part of this time, the disciple was required to take daily inventory of their sins, pausing three times a day to reflect on the previous hours. They were to make a note on paper every time they committed a particular sin. Each day they would reflect back and strive to make improvement on conquering these specific sins.
To my Reformation-influenced mind, this seems a bit legalistic and formulaic, but I don’t think it really is. The prayers Ignatius suggests do call for God’s grace in this. For instance, one of the exercises ends with a focus on “mercy, pondering and giving thanks to God our Lord that He has given me life up to now, [and] proposing amendment, with His grace, for the future.”
I don’t think this was a “works righteousness” effort. I think there’s something to how seriously Ignatius and the men he discipled took their sin, and how they methodically determined to eradicate as much as possible from their lives, primarily by beginning to actually understand the gravity of their sin and turning their attention from it to Jesus. Once this change of heart and mind was accomplished, deeper contemplation on the life of Jesus could happen.
I see this sort of exercise as a reminder to live fully aware of God’s great grace and mercy, and–with God’s help–continue on in the struggle against sin.
Moving Beyond Routine, Rote, and Obligations to Find Delight in God
I’ve continued to ponder the John Piper sermon I wrote about and his signature catchphrase “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him.” As I indicated in my post, this strikes me as true. As I’ve read the Scriptures this past week, I’ve seen this confirmed in the text. I’m thinking of Psalms like this one:
We delight in God when we point to his great delight in us!Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore,
“Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant!” (Psalm 35:27, ESV)
We love God when we praise his great love for us.
John Piper talked about how duty and commitment, while perhaps the beginning and often the glue of love, are not enough for a relationship to flourish. In fact, one is most satisfied in a relationship when there is a deep affection for the other person that is most pleased in their joy.
As I listened to Piper preach at the conference and then again via the recording later, I thought to myself, I want to be that passionate about Jesus. I want to be honestly satisfied in him more than I am now.
Okay, but what does this look like, practically? Is there more to this idea than simply offering lip service to God’s faithfulness? What does it mean to delight in the Lord? Here are three things that come to mind as I meditate on how to delight in God.
Cultivate Your Mind: How Memorizing Bible Verses Can Give You Clarity of Thought
Rhythm & Blues: Why I Pray the Daily Office
Few things have had as much impact on my life as the discipline of praying the Daily Office, a cycle of morning and evening prayer in the Anglican tradition.
This is because it’s given me a steady structure and emotionally honest framework for prayer.
Rhythm
I can say in all honesty that most days, I love to pray. I am astounded often that the creator of the universe is with me and ready to listen, and desires for me to listen to him as well. I try to cultivate an attitude of gratefulness for the truly wonderful gifts he’s given me: forgiveness, hope, life, the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, though, I don’t feel like praying.
I’m busy, tired, whatever. This is when having a plan helps: set prayers, regular time of day, and Bible readings all picked out.
Discipline begets discipline, so I notice when I’m faithful in the Office it’s easier to control my body, my thoughts, and emotions. I find I sin less for the simple fact that I know I’m going to meet with God in just few hours for confession. I know we will have to talk about what I did and/or thought about doing today.
When things seem to get out of control, when life is crazy, stressful and days seem dim, the Office becomes (by virtue of the Scriptures and ancient prayers it presents) a brighter spot and a source of comfort. When you pray the Office, you know you are not alone. My whispered prayers are joined by millions of others the world over, contemplating the same texts, breathing the same pleas for mercy, thanking the same God for the means of grace.
Blues
The Daily Office gave me the gift of the Psalms. All of them. When you pray the Office, you pray the happy, inspiring ones about God’s love and faithfulness alongside the ones that ask God hard questions, like “How long will you judge unjustly / and show partiality to the wicked?” (Psalm 82). You pray the ones that are brutally honest about fervent desires for justice to be done:
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
blessed shall he be who repays you
with what you have done to us!
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!
These are heartbreaking, violent, and often confusing words for all of us. Yet these Psalms give us permission and a path to bring all of ourselves–even and especially the angry, doubting and dark places–into the context of God’s faithfulness. After all, the Psalter is also a retelling of the whole Biblical narrative, including Christ, if we know where and how to look.
I don’t have all the answers yet, but after about five times through the Psalter so far this year I’ve gained some peace through these poems. I’ve begun to understand what it means to honestly long for God’s justice without succumbing to the temptation to exact revenge for myself. I’ve begun to learn how to pray to God even when I might be angry with him. God is big. He can take our questions and our frustration and even our possibly less-than-pure motives and by grace enable us to “walk in the light of life” (Psalm 56:13).
Rhythm and blues. That’s why I pray the Daily Office.
This One Simple Practice Changed My Life
It’s only been in the last twelve months or so that I’ve realized the power of physical discipline for taking my spiritual discipline to the next level.
It should be obvious, yet for me it hasn’t been. Discipline the body, discipline the mind.
Discipline the mind, and you’ve taken the first step toward success in many of the twelve spiritual disciplines.
St. Paul said,
But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:27, ESV)
Because physical discipline yields tangible results, we begin to better understand discipline in general, and can apply that knowledge to the spiritual realm. I recently starting exercising on a regular basis, and I’ve learned:
Look, this guy:
Me, a couple of years ago.
and this guy:
Me, a couple of weeks ago
are two completely different people, physically and spiritually.
How do we become healthier physically, sharper mentally, and deeper spiritually? By disciplining the body, mind, and spirit.
By God’s grace I’m both the most physically and spiritually disciplined I’ve ever been. The two are much more intertwined than we’d often like to admit.
Multiple Sources For Spiritual Formation
The same way that our natural bodies need more than one nutrient to remain healthy and grow, our spirits are also nourished by multiple sources. This means that even though you may be very disciplined in Bible study and prayer, it is not enough. You also need to fast and practice solitude.
This holds true for more than the disciplines. You might be very involved in a small group, but still need to pursue a mentoring relationship. You appreciate your pastor, but have tuned out all other voices for spiritual guidance.
No one practice, person, or even group can provide for us the entirety of our spiritual formation.
How Spiritual Disciplines Help Us Conform to the Mind of Christ
A graphic I created as part of my graduate work. This presents in a visual way how spiritual disciplines work to conform us to the mind of Christ.
The 12 Spiritual Disciplines: Essential Tools for Spiritual Growth
The spiritual disciplines are means by which individuals and communities can very literally “practice” their faith. They are tools by which Christians seek to know God, yield to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying power, and surrender to the Divine Will in their lives. The disciplines can be instrumental tools as we seek to “tune” ourselves to God’s desires and see his kingdom as he sees it. These holy actions have been practiced by believers since the earliest times, and are firmly rooted in Christ’s commands and examples in the Gospels.
Author and pastor Richard Foster identifies 12 crucial spiritual disciplines. These are further organized into sections: inward, outward, and corporate practices.
Disciplines of Personal Development (Inward)
Disciplines of Service to the Body of Christ (Outward)
Disciplines of Service with the Body of Christ (Corporate)
The disciplines can help move our perspective from a naturalistic point of view to one that is more holy.
The Natural Man
All of this obstructs our view of Jesus, the one who is worthy of attention, honor, praise, and worship, because of who he is and what he has done.
The disciplines can help clear the path and bring us back into line-of-sight with the Savior.
Examples of How Real Change Happens
The Disciplined Christian can know God's ways though study...
He or she spends time soaking in Scripture, becoming intimately familiar with its message, learning the history of God's church, and gaining understanding of the practical implications of theology.
The Disciplined Christian is reminded of the source of all blessing and sustenance through fasting...
Abstaining from food, time commitments and distractions, from anything that takes focus from Jesus brings clarity, focus, and humility.
The Disciplined Christian can slow down through simplicity...
Seeking the kingdom of God first ultimately causes the believer to cast aside anything that is not holy. The pursuit of wealth and power are the antithesis of the kingdom that Jesus models.
The Disciplined Christian can hear God's voice more clearly through solitude...
Alone time with God helps provide room for silence, waiting on God, and hearing the sometimes still, small voice of his Spirit.
The Disciplined Christian is grieved by sin through confession...
Personal and corporate confession provide a way to confront, admit, be convicted of, and deal with sin in the context of a supportive community and ministers of grace.
The Disciplined Christian puts God in the highest place through worship...
The believer joins with others in praise and thanksgiving, placing Jesus in the supreme place of honor in his or her life.
Conclusion
These 12 spiritual disciplines help to combat the sinful nature and our naturalistic world view. They can bring the believer into a mental, emotional, and spiritual state of higher awareness of God, his nature, and his kingdom. These tools are one way for individuals and communities to begin to bring their focus back to the Holy One and seek his will.Buy Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline, on Amazon
What is the Path to Spiritual Growth?
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s taken me this long to pick up and read Richard Foster’s classic on essential tools for spiritual growth, Celebration of Discipline. Although I’ve studied the disciplines for quite some time and have read other books on spiritual formation that took cues from Foster, I finally got around to diving into the original. It’s clear why this book has been such an influential work on so many.
I loved this book and plan on re-reading it with some frequency. Some of my favorite thoughts and quotes:
When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received...the demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. (p. 6)
The Spiritual Disciplines are intended for our good. They are meant to bring the abundance of God into our lives. It is possible, however, to turn them into another set of soul-killing laws. Law-bound Disciplines breathe death. (p. 9)
Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word. It is that simple...It involves no hidden mysteries, no secret mantras, no mental gymnastics, no esoteric flights into the cosmic consciousness. The truth of the matter is that the great God of universe, the Creator of all things desires our fellowship. (p. 17)
Service as a substitute for worship is idolatry. Activity is the enemy of adoration. (p. 161)
In the spiritual life only one thing will produce genuine joy, and that is obedience. (p. 192)
If you were to read only one book on growing in your faith as a disciple of Christ, this is the one.
Buy it on Amazon
A Devotional to Help You Hide the Word of God in Your Heart
I’ve not made Scripture memorization the priority that I should have in the past. As part of my attempt to rectify this, I bought Scripture by Heart: Devotional Practices for Memorizing God’s Word by Joseph Choonmin Kang. He’s a new pastor/author to me, but I saw that he runs with the Dallas Williard/Richard Foster crowd. That and the positive reviews on Amazon convinced me to give this book a try, and I’m very glad I did.
How to begin hearing from God
When I was in college, I struggled through a pretty long spiritual dry-spell. Then I discovered something that drastically changed the trajectory of my spiritual journey.
This new way of reading the Bible and praying transformed my “prayer life” from one-way communication (me-to-God) into a two-way conversation.
I discovered Christian meditation in the form of lectio divina. I began to take my commitment to knowing God (not just knowing about God) more seriously.
I began to expect God speak to me through the Bible and practice discernment in my thoughts to see what was from me, and what might be from the Holy Spirit. I experienced a vibrant, refreshing, realness in my walk with God I had previously only caught glimpses of.
Divine Reading
The ancient practice of Lectio Divina ("Divine Reading") most likely originated with monks of the Benedictine tradition, although it is now an integral part of the spirituality many different faith communities.The driving idea behind Lectio Divina is that Bible study is and should be an expression of your relationship with the Triune God. It is a method that emphasizes a certain conversational aspect of meditating on the Scriptures by providing specific times during your Bible study to both hear from God and respond to His word.
There are are four stages to the Lectio Divina process: Reading, Meditation, Response, and Contemplation.
Before you begin, take a moment to pray and ask for the direction of the Holy Spirit as you move through various stages of Lectio Divina. As with any method for Bible study and prayer, it will probably be beneficial to find a place that is quiet and free of distractions.
Getting started with Lectio Divina
Reading. In this first stage of prayer, choose a passage of Scripture to read slowly and carefully. Don’t read too much...you want to really be able to focus on just a few aspects of the text that might resonate. On the other hand, it’s important to not just take one verse out of context, either. I generally try to go methodically through a book of the Bible, using either the pre-marked sections or chapter markers as my guide for each session. I’ve also found it to be helpful to write down verses that stand out or thoughts that come to mind while reading. If you keep these notes, they can become a valuable record of your spiritual journey over time.Meditation. After carefully reading through your scripture passage, take some time to ponder the text. Go back over your notes, and perhaps adding clarifying thoughts and ideas as they come. Think about what this passage meant to the writer, to the original audience, and what it might mean for you. You might re-read the passage in order to glean further meaning and gain greater understanding.
Response. During this portion of the prayer, allow yourself to respond to the text. Think about how the text might change you. Does the text alter how you view the world, yourself, or God? What attitudes in yourself does the passage bring to light? Offer your response to the Father in humble submission to his will.
Contemplation. Simply focus lovingly on God. Words are not necessary in this part of the prayer, because you are resting in His presence. Don’t resist thoughts as they come to your mind…simply deal with them. If they are relevant to your conversation with God, then offer them back to him and pray for guidance. If they are not, dismiss them, and return your full attention to the One who gives you peace, rest, and understanding.
As with all disciplines, Lectio Divina takes practice and time. If you stick with it, though, it can be a life-changing way to pray the Scriptures and practice the presence of God.