July 2, 2010 -
PRLog -- Several of our small groups here at Cornerstone Community Church, Chariton, IA have been involved in a study series on the “Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life.” If you live in central southern Iowa, consider being part of this study. Our help-guide, outside of the Bible itself, is the book with the same title by the author Donald Whitney. The book, along with the class session, is based on I Timothy 4:8 to “…exercise yourself toward godliness.” It’s certainly not a class session for everyone – it’s only for those who are genuine about taking growth as a disciple of Christ seriously (note that “disciplines”
and “disciple”
can be traced from the same etymological background). If there’s something which has been lost in the practices of modern, American Christianity, it’s taking these practices (Bible intake, prayer, fasting – etc) seriously. In general, we could partly attribute this to being undisciplined in all the areas of our lives. However, it becomes commonly clear that there are areas in many of our lives in which we... are... disciplined. We might contend that “people don’t read the Bible, because people don’t read anything” – but the reality often is that those same “people” read Sports Illustrated from cover to cover every issue. Someone says “I can read Sports Illustrated because I understand it” – and yet, there was a time in the lives of all of us when we understood virtually nothing about anything (including how to tie our own shoes). My own wife, to this day, knows virtually nothing about football, and for her to read an article featuring graphs/charts/
stats and countless bites of football jargon would be about the same equivalent as someone new to the Bible reading a few chapters of Ezekiel for the first time (she’d probably also find the sports article to be quite boring). A person says “I would listen to the Bible on CD, but I can’t afford to purchase those CDs” – when in reality, the same person owns the entire CD discography of some favorite pop artists. A person says "I would pray more, but I just don’t have the time to do so." In reality, the same person just spent two days and a total of about 19 hours watching the NFL draft on the NFL Total Access channel. The truth is that we make room in our lives for what we really care about, whether it’s growth as disciples of Jesus - or something else. One of the benefits of having balanced, spiritual disciplines in our lives as Christians is that we can progressively overcome, in the power of God's Spirit, the multi-faceted temptations to sin (whether they be pride, lusts - sexual temptations, words, attitudes etc). When we take a genuine look at those who’ve gone before us in Christian history, we find people who devoted their lives to the perseverance of Christian practices – and in time they reaped the harvest of Godliness, Christ-likeness, and spiritual fruit. We often admire those Christians who’ve gone before us and hope to have their “impact” springing from our lives in the present day, but in the present day we don’t make the time/effort to apply ourselves – perseveringly – to the channels/pathways which those before us have taken. Note that Jesus himself modeled these practices by knowing the scriptures (“have you not read…?”) and being deeply committed to prayer (“So He himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed” – Luke 5:16; “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God” Luke 6:12). Setting before our eyes the lives of Christians who’ve gone before us, with Jesus’ life as the ultimate goal – allows us to always have before us a vision of what we’re aspiring to – and then the discipline which could be drudgery, becomes discipline with direction, which is never drudgery.
There are numerous helps and plans available for people to use in order to begin the two obvious "disciplines"
of reading the Bible and praying. Simply put, however, one could dedicate his/herself to just go for it - read it… and pray. Donald Whitney writes “the best way to learn how to pray is to pray.” He quotes from a famous book about prayer (Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer which I would highly recommend) which contains the following words: “Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won’t teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I might listen for a year to a professor of music playing the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument.”
Whitney also presents the following excerpt from a Welsh pastor/author on the subject of getting started reading the Bible – and persevering in the practice: “Do not expect to master the Bible in a day, or a month, or a year. Rather, expect often to be puzzled by its contents. It is not all equally clear. Great men of God often feel like absolute novices when they read the Word. The Apostle Peter said that there were some things hard to understand in the epistles of Paul (2 Peter 3:16). I am glad he wrote those words because I have felt that way often. So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible…you may expect that to be a frequent experience, but often you will get no emotional response at all. Let the Word break over your heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct. You will probably be the last to recognize these. Often you will feel very, very small, because increasingly the God of the Bible will become to you wonderfully great. So go on reading it until you can read no longer, and then you will not need the Bible any more, because when your eyes close for the last time in death, and never again read the Word of God in Scripture you will open the to the Word of God in the flesh, that same Jesus of the Bible whom you have known for so long, standing before you to take you forever to His eternal home.”
See you in the “gyms”
-Pastor Eric Hann
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Cornerstone Community Church, Chariton, Iowa, is dedicated to glorifying God as we worship in celebration, connect with fellow Christians for spiritual growth, and contribute to the advancement of Christ's gospel witness through words and service
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