A Christian's Need for Spiritual Habits Pt. 2

In the last blog we began to explore the importance and need for consistent spiritual habits in the life of every Christian through a Biblical context. In this post, I want to explore the practical aspects of spiritual habits.

One main, modern misunderstanding we need to address is this: spiritual growth is about more Bible knowledge or faithful church attendance.

Most Christians assume that if they study the Bible and attend church they will mature as a Christian. While good Biblical knowledge and faithful church attendance are critical to a Christian's growth, it's not a sufficient plan for spiritual maturity.

Even outside of the Christian context you’ll find this to be true. For example, if you want to learn Spanish. You cannot only rely on learning about the Spanish language from a book. To be fluent in Spanish you will also need hundreds of hours of practicing conversational Spanish and listening to Spanish movies or music to expand your vocabulary.How intensely we go about our training depends on how seriously we want to pursue our goal of being fluent in Spanish. Turns out this pattern of learning and growing is true even for our spiritual life. We need to train ourselves in godliness.

Training, not Trying harder

The apostle Paul, writing to a young pastor Timothy, instructs him this way:

“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” 1 Timothy 4:7-9 (ESV)

In setting out the model for a faithful christian, Paul uses the illustration of physical training as the pattern for spiritual training. He describes the follower of Christ as someone who is training themselves in godliness.

This might be news to some of you. This might even make you question how one can be saved by God's grace through faith alone and still train to be godly.

We will explore this tension in detail in the upcoming Re:new seminar. But let this put your mind to rest: Jesus, the apostles and the early church saw no such conflict between God's free gift of salvation and training to be godly.

In fact, whole life discipleship to Jesus is the only appropriate response to this great gift that we have received apart from any merit of our own.

Not Inspiration, but Transformation

Many Christians are moved by what Jesus did on the cross. They are inspired by His love and reflect on it from time to time. They admire and hope to emulate the wonderful teachings of Jesus. But what we really need is a deep transformation of our heart. The current state of our hearts and character were not formed over a week or two. They were not formed simply by admiring the cultural or religious heroes we love. But rather it’s a product that has been decades in the making. And it was formed by our choices, habits & circumstances up to the moment that we decided to follow Jesus.

Therefore, the transformation or reshaping of our hearts and character will also not occur by happenstance. It will require a lifelong commitment to activities that enable us to die to our old patterns of living and interacting with God and each other.

This is the disciple's journey to become like their master, Jesus.

Good trees naturally bring forth good fruit

When you have a moment where you have to choose to love your enemy or to give generously when it’s not easy, those are “on-stage” moments when God’s love is on display through your actions. Choosing rightly in those moments requires a lot of practice - smaller, mundane, daily, intentional choices that allow the Holy Spirit to work on our unloving and ungenerous hearts.

Looking for opportunities to love your enemy or give generously, while commendable, are not the end goals for us as Christians. Our goal, as Christians, is to follow Jesus by practicing spiritual disciplines, so that love and generosity are the natural desires and expressions of our heart when the circumstances call for it.

So, to become the person that is like Jesus, we have to take on this journey of discipleship. It requires absolute surrender to Jesus, but will bring rest for our souls.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30

I hope this was a helpful summary of the practical need for spiritual disciplines. We’ll explore these ideas more THIS SATURDAY, March 20th, in our Re:new seminar.

P.S. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do that here: http://bit.ly/3cxwGfI. Childcare, refreshments, and handouts will be available.