Spiritual Disciplines
The goal of the Christian life is ever-increasing Christlikeness: being just like Jesus, living just like Jesus and loving just like Jesus.
Spiritual disciplines are activities that we can engage in as disciples of Jesus - they help in the pursuit of intimacy with God and our growth towards Christlikeness. They are also vital in ensuring spiritual, emotional, mental and even physical wellbeing.
Spiritual disciplines are all about arranging our lives for spiritual formation and transformation – for becoming who we really are in Christ. There is no official biblical list of spiritual disciplines (arguably any practice that brings someone into greater awareness of God and His will for our lives is a spiritual discipline) but we can broadly say that there are two categories of spiritual disciplines: disciplines of engagement and disciplines of abstinence.
Disciplines of engagement involve intentionally doing certain things; these include practices such as:
Bible engagement/meditation, Prayer, Worship, Celebration, Bible Study, Fellowship, Gathering, Serving, Generosity
Disciplines of abstinence involve intentionally refraining from doing certain things; these include practices such as:
Fasting, Sabbath, Retreat, Solitude, Silence
When it comes to the spiritual disciplines, there will be daily, foundational rhythms such as prayer and Bible engagement. There will be weekly ones such as a being part of a church service or volunteering. There might be monthly ones such as fasting. There might be seasonal or annual ones such as retreat.
Though these practices are called “spiritual”, this doesn’t mean they don’t involve physical activities – in fact they engage our whole person. They are called “disciplines” because, although many people grow to love and enjoy them (just like many enjoy pushing themselves to the limits in physical exercise), they are not always the intuitive thing to do. We need to make a conscious choice to engage in them - but once we do, we discover that they soon lead to delight!
Check out this sermon for more information.