Copyright by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n
All rights reserved<\/p>\n
The classic disciplines of the Christian life, practices like fasting, silence, solitude, and sacrificial giving, continue to get short shrift in contemporary Evangelicalism. This remains true despite the efforts of many to re-introduce into the Church the idea of pursuing such disciplines during the past three decades. This is unfortunate because there is much to commend the idea that a weakness in Christian living has rendered many of us unrecognizable as a people in the world, but not of it, and consequently weakened our witness to that world.<\/p>\n
Spiritual laziness (a personal problem, by the way, with which the author is not unfamiliar) has become a problem today due to our tendency to constantly drill into people the idea that any kind of \u201cwork\u201d is wrongheaded. The message sometimes appears to be that since it is faith by grace that saves us receiving Christ as Savior is the be-all and end-all of being a Christian. These kinds of statements are theologically true, of course. The problem is that they often become a false justification for living out a feeble and ineffective form of Christianity because they are preached to the exclusion of spiritual discipline. However, it is one thing to be saved and quite another to walk in the fullness of Jesus Christ growing to our full potential as His disciples; to do that we must embrace discipline as an indispensable part of sanctification. <\/p>\n
Grace is indeed the motive power in our transformation into the image of God\u2019s Son. Apart from it attempts at discipline truly are worthless because discipline divorced from saving and sustaining grace is not of any value. The Pharisees, for instance, were a highly disciplined bunch, but their pride-driven efforts were offensive to the very God they claimed to serve so much more purely than everyone else. Practicing self-denial in its various forms can also become unhealthy when the motivation for self-denial is tied to compulsion and fear. Rigid asceticism that paints all pleasure as somehow inherently wrong is another false distortion of biblical discipline. Unfortunately bad motivation and flesh-based efforts have sometimes seemed to give the practice of any spiritual discipline an undeserved bad name.<\/p>\n
The only right motivation for fasting, silence, solitude, sacrificial giving, et al is a desire to become more like Jesus Christ because we passionately love Him. The Son of Man practiced all of these disciplines and more. He knew that doing so was integral to His relationship with His Father and so it also is with us. While the reproduction of the Savior\u2019s character in his people is enabled by God\u2019s grace it is walked out by their personal application of the disciplines He modeled. If we want to fully realize our faith in the day-in, day-out routine of our lives we cannot simply brush-off biblical discipline by declaring it \u201clegalistic.\u201d <\/p>\n
Once it is understood that a life of discipline is necessary to an authentically powerful Christian walk there are a multitude of sources, both ancient and contemporary, that will teach us how to practice it. Because of the availability of such sources today God\u2019s people cannot use a lack of knowledge or example as a reason to shun the mandate to walk in the way of Christ in this aspect of the Faith.<\/p>\n
The good news is the fact that this yoke isn\u2019t only not burdensome, but it actually gives us the potential to continue to walk in the joy and peace we first experienced upon our salvation. Its harvest is a pleasing one for those who are trained by it. There is no downside to properly motivated and practiced spiritual discipline. The ability to live in this way is God-enabled and our decision to do so in spirit and in truth is always blessed by Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved The classic disciplines of the Christian life, practices like fasting, silence, solitude, and sacrificial giving, continue to get short shrift in contemporary Evangelicalism. This remains true despite the efforts of many to re-introduce into the Church the idea of pursuing such disciplines during the past three decades. This… <\/p>\n