THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

There are seven primary spiritual disciplines. They are Bible study, Bible memorization, prayer, worship, evangelism, serving and stewardship. I have not listed these in order of importance. Since these represent the major spiritual disciplines they are all of equal value in the life of the committed Christian.

Personally I tackled these disciplines one at a time. Shortly after I was saved, I prayed and told the Lord that I was not going to participate in his church or giving any money to his church. That was a mistake, but it was what I did. So, I eliminated two of the disciplines right off the bat, stewardship and worship. After that I began reading my Bible everyday, followed by personal prayer. So, without knowing it I was exercising two of the spiritual disciplines in the early days of my Christian life.

Establishing those two disciplines led to curiosity about the others. I began to understand that giving was part of the Christian's life, because the Bible told me so. The same was true of serving, evangelism and worship. All of these things are modeled in the Bible. The only discipline I didn't find modeled in the scriptures was memorization. Actually, it was modeled all over the place, but because the word memorize is no where to be found in the translation that I study,[NIV], and I am a real literal guy, I had to learn the discipline of memorization through the encouragement of another man.

As I say, I ventured into these disciplines pretty much one at a time. As the discipline became an established part of my life, I embraced the next discipline.

I am not recommending this, one discipline at a time idea. Every man has his own way of learning and growing in Christ. What I want you to know is that God is patient and encouraging and forgiving. These are all wonderful traits of God, but they are not to be used as an excuse for laziness. Neither the Old Testament or the New Testament give any quarter to laziness. Having said that, God knows how you are wired and He knows how long it will take you to get a spiritual discipline firmly established in your life. Work dilligently at establishing these disciplines. Work at it as though your spiritual life depended on them, because your spiritual life does depend on them.

One final caution. Don't play at this. Many men worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship. Don't do that. Examine yourself. Be brutally honest. Don't settle for add ing up the dabbling you've done in these spiritual areas, and then give yourself a passing grade. Chances are you will cut yourself off from the deeper blessings of fellowshiping with Jesus.

Remember, God doesn't want your excuse, He wants your heart.


SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2006