SPIRITUAL FITNESS FOR THE NEW YEAR

“Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.   (1 Timothy 4:7b-8 NIV)

A new year invites us to reset our priorities. Many of us will focus on physical health -- dieting, exercising, or finally using that gym membership. Paul reminds us this has value, but he also points us to something far more lasting: training in godliness.

John Ortberg writes in "The Life You've Always Wanted" that if we want to grow spiritually, we must “stop trying and start training.” Trying depends on momentary effort. Training builds steady habits that shape us over time. Spiritual growth doesn’t happen by accident; it grows through intentional practices that open our hearts to God’s transforming work.

This year, consider simple rhythms that strengthen your soul: Prayer as a daily conversation with God. Scripture as nourishment for your soul and guidance for the journey. Worship as a posture of reverence and gratitude. Community as the place where we support one another and grow best.  Devotional reading as the source of encouragement from those who are spiritual trainers. These practices are the gymnasium of the soul. And the promise is clear: godliness brings blessing not only for eternity, but for the life you’re living right now.

If you know of someone like you who would like to be part of a daily spiritual fitness routine this year, encourage them to follow this blog or subscribe to this e-mail through the link at the bottom of the column to the right.

As you step into the new year, may you train -- not try -- and may Christ be formed in you more deeply with every step.   

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™  

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THE DISCIPLINE OF SERVICE

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  (Mark 10:45 NIV)

As the cross is the sign of submission, so the towel is the sign of service. When Jesus gathered His disciples for the Last Supper they were having trouble over who was the greatest. This was no new issue for them. “And an argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest” (Luke 9:46). Whenever there is trouble over who is the greatest there is trouble over who is the least. That is the crux of the matter for us, isn’t it? Most of us know we will never be the greatest; just don’t let us be the least.

Having lived out servanthood before them Jesus called them to the way of service. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)

In the Discipline of Service there is also great glory. Service enables us to say “no!” to the world’s games of promotion and authority. It abolishes our need (and desire) for a “pecking order.” 

-- Richard J. Foster in “Celebration of Discipline”

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COMMITTED TO DAILY DISCIPLINE

“Then Jesus said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’”  (Luke 9:23 NKJV)

Making the conscious effort to do something intentional and beneficial with a relationship is always our opportunity, irrespective of how we feel… And that includes committing ourselves to the discipline of daily time and attention regarding our relationship with God. What better way to grow spiritually than through the generous love of deliberate action?

Conscious effort is the first and biggest step toward the “becoming” part of spiritual formation -- the decision and the discipline of it -- the element that lost its way so easily when all we had to fall back on was our desire.

In our men’s group someone pointed out the infrequent occurrence of the miraculous in most of our day-to-day lives. “It’s not that we are looking for something spectacular in particular,” he said. “But things just happen around people of great faith who choose to believe.”

He is exactly right. Saying “I choose You, Jesus; it is my intention and my goal to follow more deliberately in Your way” can open the door to the most amazing things. 

-- Adapted from “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men” by Derek Maul

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HOW TO FINISH WELL – Part 3 of 6

How do we finish well?... First, those who finish well have a Christ-centered life… Second, those who finish well have a focused life…

Third, those who end well have disciplined lives. That’s the other side of being focused. To be focused, you have to eliminate the unnecessary.

To get this point across, the New Testament uses numerous athletic images. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul pictures a runner. He said run in such a way that you may win. But then he added, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.” Therefore, he said, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (vv. 25-27 ESV). The writer to the Hebrews said, “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). He too is talking about discipline.

A Christian who finishes well will practices spiritual disciplines. As Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and others have enumerated, there will be the disciplines of abstinence such a fasting, silence, solitude, frugality, sacrifice, and chastity. But there will also be the disciplines of engagement such as prayer, fellowship, worship, study, service, confession, and submission.

These will help guard our inner lives. The disciplines will not become an end in themselves. For they are really disciplines in response to God’s grace. Grace and discipline are spiritual friends, when kept in the right order. Spiritual disciplines become a means of grace that help us get to the finish line.

-- Adapted from Donald W. Sweeting and George Sweeting in “How to Finish the Christian Life: Following Jesus in the Second Half”

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DISCIPLINES FOR SPIRITUAL LIFE

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”  (Acts 2:42 ESV)

The persons and ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus Himself, both rich in the practice of activities designed to strengthen the Spirit, were held constantly before [early Christians]. So, wherever early Christians looked they saw examples of the practice of solitude, fasting, prayer, private study, communal study, worship, and sacrificial service and giving -- to mention only some of the more obvious disciplines for spiritual life.

These early Christians really did arrange their lives very differently from their non-Christian neighbors, as well as from the vast majority of those of us called Christians today. We are speaking of their overall style of life, not just what they did under pressure, which frequently was also astonishingly different. 

-- Dallas Willard in “The Spirit of the Disciplines”

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FINISHING WELL

Those who end well have disciplined lives… To get to this point, the New Testament uses numerous athletic images. In 1 Corinthians 9:25-27, Paul pictures a runner. He said run in such a way that you win. But then he added, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.” Therefore he said, “I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” The writer of Hebrews said, “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1) He too is talking about discipline.

A Christian who finishes well will practice spiritual disciplines… There will be the disciplines of abstinence such as fasting, silence, solitude, frugality, sacrifice, and chastity. But there will also be the disciplines of engagement such as prayer, fellowship, worship, study, service, confession, and submission.

These will help guard our inner lives. The disciplines will not become an end in themselves. For they are really disciplines in response to God’s grace. Grace and discipline are spiritual friends, when kept in the right order. Spiritual disciplines become a means of grace that help us get to the finish line. 

-- Donald W. Sweeting & George Sweeting in “How to Finish the Christian Life: Following Jesus in the Second Half”

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AN OPENING TO GOD

“Be still, and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

For as long as I can remember, I have not feared silence but welcomed it as a source of spiritual deepening. Like other people living in the world, I’ve grown accustomed to the noise in my place of work, to the raucous sounds of the city, to the inner disquiet stirred up by busy thoughts and earnest projects. Silence can be an escape from the functional responsibilities and physical demands of listening and conversing with colleagues, friends, and family members. But it can also be an opening to God. 

-- Susan Annette Muto in “Pathways of Spiritual Living”

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WAIT FOR THE LORD

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”  (Psalm 27:14)

Waiting may be one of the ultimate tests of our faith. It certainly is one of the hardest spiritual disciplines to learn.

Isaiah wisely encouraged those who are waiting on God to consider others who have waited on Him. He pointed out in Isaiah 64:4, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”

Scripture says if we wait on God we will be blessed. If we grow impatient while waiting and take matters into our own hands, we’ll be in trouble.

Are you waiting on God for something? Then take heart. Don’t run ahead. Be strong enough to wait. Wait. And again I say, wait for the Lord. 

-- Anne Graham Lotz in “Fixing My Eyes on Jesus”

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EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY

“We love because God first loved us.”  (1 John 4:19 GNT)

Generosity begins not with what I give to God, but with what God has already given to me. The Bible says that extravagant, self-giving generosity is the tangible expression of the love that is in the very heart of God. We are generous to others because God has been so extravagantly generous to us.

Generosity is not optional for followers of Jesus Christ. It is the spiritual discipline that shapes our lives around the extravagant generosity of God. Our use of money undergoes a fundamental transformation when we stop asking how much of our wealth we will give to God and start asking how much of God’s wealth we will keep for ourselves. Generosity is the antidote to greed, which is one of the seven deadly sins. Greed is sinful because it is an inherent contradiction of the essential character of God. It is deadly because it results in spiritual arteriosclerosis that blocks the flow of God’s life into our lives and into the world. 

-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deepening Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL LIFE

My research methodology may be unscientific, but the anecdotal evidence I have collected tells me that fewer than ten of every one hundred Christian men I talk with have an active, well-considered daily devotional life. That’s really a low number.

But here’s a piece of completely reliable corollary data that turns out to be remarkably interesting: 100 percent of those who do maintain a regular devotional discipline report that the daily routine pays off in ways that are nothing short of miraculous.

By miraculous I mean eternal, unremitting, awesome, satisfying, and unarguably life-changing. By miraculous I also mean a discernable improvement in their daily lives across the board. Relationships, parenting, work attitude, productivity, work satisfaction, effective Christian witness, love life -- need I go on? This is true even when the men I talk with believe they are just beginning to scratch the surface regarding their daily walk with God. The investment of just a few short but deliberate minutes, every day, makes a difference in the lives of Christian men that cannot be accounted for by any other variable.  

– Derek Maul in “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men”

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TRAINING WISELY

“Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”  (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT)

In his book “The Life You’ve Always Wanted”, John Ortberg makes a helpful distinction between trying and training. He says that anyone can try to run a marathon, but only those who train for it will actually accomplish it.

In the same way, anyone can try to be a follower of Christ, but the only people who actually discover the life to which God has called us are those who train for it. Ortberg concludes, “Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely.” Disciples are people who choose to enter into the spiritual disciplines that, if practiced over time, will enable them to become Spirit-energized, grace-filled, joy-soaked disciples who are learning to love God with their whole hearts, souls, minds, and strength while learning to love others the way they have been loved by God. 

-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deepening Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

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SPIRITUAL FORMATION

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.” (2 Timothy 2:2 NLT)

One of the biggest complaints I have heard from liberal, moderate, and conservative Christians about the spiritual formation movement is that it emphasizes self-focused navel gazing. These critics complain that the study of spirituality and spiritual practices teaches people to become self-consumed rather than mission oriented. That’s not true. Spiritual formation’s detractors create a false dichotomy. Rarely do I find someone truly devoted to spiritual practices who isn’t also devoted to outreach of some kind. A relationship with God always compels us to acts of loving sacrifice. True prayer always leads to action. The real problem arises when people act without prayer, because then the focus is on themselves, not on serving God.

-- N. Graham Standish in “Becoming a Blessed Church: Forming a Church of Spiritual Purpose, Presence, and Power”


#4701

SPIRITUAL QUIETNESS

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  (Psalm 46:10 NIV)

Profound silence is not something we fall into casually. This may indeed happen, and a blessed happening it is, but normally we choose to set aside a time and place to enter into spiritual quietness. Those who never do this, or shrink from it, run a very grave risk of remaining half-fulfilled as humans.

-- Sister Wendy Beckett in “Meditations on Silence”


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