Spiritual Disciplines: Learning to Put the Ways of Jesus Into PracticeSample

Organize Your Life Around the Practices of Jesus

Yesterday, we took time to meditate on Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount, allowing them to take deep root in our mind, body, and spirit. Jesus ends the sermon with a challenge to hear His words and put them into practice.

As we consider how to implement the practices of Jesus into our daily lives, it is essential to have a strong understanding of what the Spiritual Disciplines are and what they are not.

Robert Mulholland Jr. describes spiritual formation as a "process." Spiritual formation is not a one-time event. Instead, it is a lifelong journey of shedding our false selves and putting on Christ. Practicing Spiritual Disciplines is our role in our spiritual formation into the person of Christ. It is vital to understand that being formed in the image of Christ is not something we can do on our own. Only God can initiate and sustain our formation. He has given us the disciplines as a means of receiving His grace.

Perhaps you might find this illustration helpful as we consider what the Spiritual Disciplines are. Think of them as an act of surrender to God where we posture our lives before Him so that He can do the work of spiritual formation in our hearts that only He can do.

Although some effort is required, we must resist the temptation to turn the Spiritual Disciplines into a list of rules, laws, or absolute commandments. They are not the end goal of the spiritual life. We must never forget that practicing any Spiritual Discipline is a means to an end. Our aim is to become more like Jesus - a person characterized by love, joy, and peace.

John Ortberg provides us with a sobering description of what the dark side of discipline can look like. "Notice what a disciplined person is not. A disciplined person is not simply someone who exercises many disciplines. A disciplined person is not a highly systematic, rigidly scheduled, chart-making, gold-star-loving early riser. The Pharisees were rigid and organized, but they were not disciplined persons in the sense required by true discipleship."

In Matthew 23:27, Jesus offers a very stern warning to the Pharisees who appeared very disciplined on the outside but, on the inside, lacked the love of God's Eternal Kingdom. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

On the other hand, the Spiritual Disciplines are a way of organizing our lives around the practices and overall lifestyle of Jesus. Leaning into the lifestyle we see from Jesus in the Gospels is not about trying harder. Instead, it is about training ourselves in godliness. When practiced rightly, the disciplines bring freedom. (See 1 Timothy 4:7)

Today, as you walk along the road of life with Jesus, how is He inviting you to organize your life around the Spiritual Disciplines in a way that leads to freedom, not "legalism that leads to spiritual death?"