Why Are Spiritual Disciplines Necessary?

A significant facet of Christian maturity involves the spiritual disciplines. These disciplines would come with prayer, fasting, silence, solitude, acts of mercy, study, and company disciplines resembling worship. Jesus is our ultimate exemplar in these pursuits. Far from being a recipe for legalism, the spiritual disciplines are time-tested methods which have worked effectively to coach us to develop into the people we really need to develop into.

Dallas Willard used to say that grace is against earning—not effort. While it’s true that we’re saved by grace alone, if we wish to grow in spiritual maturity, we’ll have to cooperate with God’s will. Spiritual disciplines can play an indispensable part in bringing us into cooperation with God’s plan for our lives. 

In our pursuit of Christlikeness, we wish to avoid two extremes. On the one hand, we will overemphasize human responsibility, shortcircuiting our sense of total dependence on God. On the opposite hand, we will overemphasize divine sovereignty, stifling our efforts toward spiritual maturity. 

Discipline and dependence must go hand-in-hand. My efforts to cooperate with God’s will don’t undermine His sovereignty. Willard also liked to use the word training to the spiritual disciplines due to its practicality. Imagine if we pursued conformity to Christ with the identical rigor as we do with tennis, golf, or learning an instrument or one other language. The results could be radically transformative. 

Our Lord Himself practiced the disciplines. If Jesus didn’t regard these as optional, why would we suppose we could? We could be smart to follow the master. We are thus apprentices of kingdom living. You develop into an apprentice, then a journeyman, and at last a master yourself. Having develop into a master, you proceed to duplicate that process. This is a matter of divine and human synergy. As Paul tells us in Philippians 2: 12-13, 

“So then. My beloved, just as you may have all the time obeyed, not in my presence only, but now way more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” 

But then he goes on to say, “For it’s God who’s at work in you, each to will and to work for his good pleasure.” It’s true that Paul tells us to work out our salvation, but he also says it’s God who gives us the desire to achieve this. Inspiration still requires cooperation, and we join our efforts with God to permit him to bring about His transformation in our lives.

In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard talks concerning the law of indirect preparedness. Knowledgeable athlete could also be charming on the sphere, nevertheless it’s the extreme training regimen that takes place behind the scenes that’s of true significance. The same principle applies to skilled musicians. As one pianist is presupposed to have said, “When I miss practice for at some point, I can tell the difference. When I miss practice for 2 days, my critics can tell the difference. And if I missed practice for 3 days, my audience can tell the difference.” The point is that you would be able to never rest on yesterday’s endeavor, but you will need to proceed to habituate and practice so that you just’re developing and continually growing.

What we don’t need to be are spectators. Many people begin to follow Christ with joy and enthusiasm, only to eventually drift to the sidelines, benching themselves and watching the sport from the bleachers.

The aim of faithful Christians, nevertheless, is to be in the sport. To ensure, this may require us to count the price. Jesus Himself is clear on the matter. The spiritual disciplines are a way to an end, and that end is bigger intimacy with Christ. While it’s true that sacrifice is involved, this vision of deeper intimacy with Jesus is the inspiration behind the training.

And there might be a definite inertia, an unwillingness, a scarcity of momentum at first. And yet, I’ve never regretted times when I’ve prayed and times when I’ve studied the scriptures, but I’ve often regretted times once I got out of the habit. So, if I want to excel when it’s required, this law of indirect preparedness signifies that what I do off the sphere or off the concert stage will equip me for what I want to do on the required motion. 

So if I view the spiritual disciplines as habits that shape my character and as a sort of divine-human synergy where I’m involved in the method but at the identical time I’m dependent upon the Holy Spirit to empower me, then I think I’m moving in a process where I’m becoming an increasing number of like Jesus through training. So it is not a matter of trying, but more a matter of training. 

I think these spiritual disciplines bestow a sort of controlled freedom to answer changing circumstances, offering us steadiness within the midst of uncertainty. They also replace habits of sin. They actually replace the thing that you don’t need with something very significantly better—something you do want. By replacing something we don’t desire with something we do want, we prepare to develop into the sort of one that responds as Christ would.

In Matthew 16:24, Jesus makes clear that those that follow Him must deny themselves and take up their crosses. One of the important thing inquiries to ask ourselves is, What do I need greater than the rest? If I need to know Christ and develop into like him, I’ll engage within the practices our Lord modeled. He would often withdraw to lonely places to be with the Father. We must do the identical. It’s been said that without Shabbat, there is not any Shalom. Without the Sabbath, and not using a time of rest, reflection, and renewal, we is not going to have the ability to sink our roots more deeply into the soil of God’s truth and word.

But if, as a substitute, through practice and thru habituation, we train ourselves to develop into more like Christ, we will develop into empowered to do what we wish because our wants might be unified with Christ’s will.

Photo Credit:  ©Getty Images/Bohdan Bevz

Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.

Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.

Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.