Spiritual Disciplines Marathon !

Hello all! For the next 3 weeks we will be doing a series on the Spiritual Disciplines. I am going to start us off. First, let’s look at the heart of the matter (from my perspective).

A while back, Pastor Matt was preaching in the morning service and he defined sin as not loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength (my own paraphrase). I really appreciated this particular definition because it captured the heart attitude behind our actions. By that I mean that my flesh is so sneaky and utterly sinful and deceitful, that I can justify my actions as not sinful (oftentimes) because "technically" I was not disobeying a direct command of God's word. However, when seen in light of this definition, I sin ALOT more than I would own up to. So... my mind went from there to meditate on the opposite of sin: godliness... (my own antonym).

Now I looked at godliness from two ways... one: I pondered godliness as "being like God"... but like God in what particular quality? My thoughts went back to the definition of sin and to God’s first and foremost commandment to us... and decided that the pre-eminent quality of God which I need to "be like" is (as John Piper says) God's supreme satisfaction (love) of/in Himself. In other words, to be like God I must love Him first and foremost. And then two: I also looked at godliness from the simple aspect of it being the opposite of sin (note the definition of sin in the first paragraph). By implication, the definition of godliness would then be “love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength". So the two ways that I was pondering godliness have coincided so far... both ending up with my needing to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength for me to be godly.

Later in the evening service Matt was preaching out of Psalm 27 "4 Crucial Keys to Overcoming Fear.” His second point was: be passionate about your pursuit of God. This got me wondering. How do I pursue God passionately? What about when I don't feel very loving toward God but rather cold or just methodical? Can I pursue Him then? Into my head pops the scripture verse "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness…” 1 Timothy 4:7. Wait a minute... discipline myself for the purpose of loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? Discipline... that takes daily deciding to do what does not come naturally to me... but which will apparently make me love God? I desire to love God more... In fact the reason this line of thought caught my mind is because I find myself living life by a check list.... such as: read bible, clean dishes, make dinner, be submissive, correct math sheets, etc. And only too often do I look back on my day and see a lot of things done, but not much passion for God and not nearly enough enthusiasm and love warming my heart and drawing me closer to Him. I want to be passionate for God but something is lacking.

Well, then my thoughts went to something I have heard Pastor Rick (my-brother–in-law) say many times ... (my own paraphrase) " The spiritual disciplines are a God ordained channel that we (believers) put ourselves in whereby God will meet us and bless us and draw us closer unto Him. He will use the spiritual disciplines to grow us into the image of Christ as we submit ourselves to His word and the Holy Spirit”. So then God wants us to be like Him... (Loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, etc) and He has ordained that the means to pursuing that love for Him is through the spiritual disciplines. So ... I want to love God more. God must produce this lasting love in me through Christ / the Holy Spirit within me... but I am not called to sit on my laurels and wait twiddling my thumbs for God to pump me full of this love for Him... (For God's word says, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling knowing that it is God who is at work within you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13 paraphrased). I am called to pursue, yes, even chase after a heart/mind that loves God more. How do I pursue that which is so intangible though?

Well, God is so gracious and kind that He has made it so that a child believer can even pursue this love for Him. He has given us "the spiritual disciplines" as revealed to us in His word... (That being one of the primary disciplines... intake of God's word). I will be discussing this important spiritual discipline as well as its counterpart: meditation, today and for the next three days.