Text- 1 Timothy 4:7 – “… Rather, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness”
Spiritual disciplines are those practices that a Christian is expected to perform regularly in order to cultivate spiritual development and promote spiritual growth. They often include habits of devotion that are capable of keeping a person in tune with God and inducing spiritual experiences.
Whenever we talk about spiritual disciplines, one word that should come to our minds is the word, “DO”. Spiritual disciplines are things you do, not things you have. They are neither gifts nor graces; they are activities and practices.
Nonetheless, the activities and practices of spiritual discipline are not ends in themselves; they are means to an end. The sole aim and purpose of practicing any spiritual discipline is to ‘BE’… to be with Jesus, to be like Jesus, to be in tune with Jesus! This is what happens when we engage in rightly motivated spiritual discipline. We are human BEINGS, but our being is tied to the things we are DOING.
Note my emphasis on rightly motivated spiritual disciplines. It is possible to behave like the Pharisees, doing do daily “religious activities” that have no spiritual or eternal relevance. Jesus said in Matthew 23:5 that everything they do is for show, and went on to rebuke them. You see, what makes our spiritual activities count is that they are rightly motivated.
But then, can we do just about anything we deem to be spiritual and call it a spiritual discipline, so long as we have the right motives? Definitely NO! Spiritual disciplines cannot be called so except they are activities and practices taught or modeled in the Bible.
Can you imagine someone claiming that gardening is a spiritual discipline? This sounds very silly and ridiculous. However, there are a lot of silly and ridiculous things people do today, which they strongly believe to be spiritual disciplines.
But then, upon closer inspection, we discover that there is nowhere such things are taught or modeled in the Bible. An example of that is yoga… there is simply no place where this is taught or modeled in the Bible!
Furthermore, spiritual disciplines are not left to our prerogative; they are not determined by “what works for me”. You will wonder at someone who says “Prayer works for you, but football does just as much for my soul as praying does for yours.” This goes on to say that we must, as a necessity, pick our spiritual disciplines from the Bible and from the Bible alone.
The things we find in Scriptures are good enough to make us grow spiritually and be like Christ; they are adequate enough to help us know and experience God in the deepest and most personal way possible. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” – 2 Timothy 3:16–17
See, whatever it is that someone else prescribes and/or promotes as a spiritual discipline –no matter how beneficial they make it seem, or how long they claim to have been practicing it– if it is not taught or modeled in the Bible, then it is silly, ridiculous and absolutely unnecessary.
PRAYER Father, help me to rightly discipline myself for the purpose of godliness in Jesus Name.
Image Credit: takechargeworld.com