Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

So the Spiritual Disciplines are those personal and interpersonal activities given by God in the Bible as the sufficient means believers in Jesus Christ are to use in the Spirit-filled, gospel-driven pursuit of godliness, that is, closeness to Christ and conformity to Christ.

There’s an instructive significance to the sequence in this verse. Ezra (1) “set his heart,” (2) “to study the Law of the LORD,” (3) “and to do it,” (4) “and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

George Müller observed, The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it. Oh, how good, and kind, and gracious, and condescending is the One with Whom we have to do! He has given me, unworthy as I a

We can be prayer pessimists and see the expectation to pray merely as obligation, or we can be optimists who view the command to pray as an opportunity to receive the mercy and grace of God.

A year before he died, Maravich said in an interview, The key to my ability was repetition. I practiced and practiced and practiced again. I gave the sport my total commitment. I tried everything I could in every way I could to perfect my skills. It was like an obsession. It paid off for me as a player. I’m not so sure in life. If I had given that

The Puritan minister and writer Thomas Watson, whose influence was so great he was called by Charles Spurgeon “the nursing mother of gigantic evangelical divines,”[16] encouraged anticipation about application when he said, Take every word as spoken to yourselves. When the word thunders against sin, think thus: “God means my sins”; when it presseth

Although “trust” and “rest” are core values of the Christian life, so are “discipline” and “struggle.” Many forces combat the spiritual progress of those still on this side of heaven. Now, the way of Christ is not always an inner struggle or every moment a battle, but neither is it without lifelong opposition. Therefore, don’t be misled into thinki

How did men like Edwards and Whitefield become so unusually conformed to the image of Christ? Part of their secret was their use of the Spiritual Discipline of journaling to maintain self-accountability for their spiritual goals and priorities. Before we give all the reasons why we cannot be as godly as they were, let us first try doing what they d

As with all the Disciplines, journaling requires persistence through the dry times.