Deep Spiritual Thoughts # 1001 - The Pursuit of Godliness Towards the end of every year, I tend to take an inventory of where I am, and of where I want to be. I do this in many categories such as family, finances, health and wellness, what I eat, and I especially take a spiritual inventory. I tend to reflect on the past year to see where I have grown, and then I press on to a new year with new goals. During the past few weeks I have been praying and thinking about something that just sounds like it might take a lot of work. I have been thinking about spiritual disciplines and whether they are still valid for today, or do we just take a lets just let God lead us and see what happens, type of an approach. I think when I even hear the term spiritual disciplines I hear one thing, and that is legalism. I then think here we go again. What I need to understand however, is that spiritual disciplines are necessary for our growth. The problem is with the wording and how we understand it. Immediately when I think of the word discipline I hear something that will take a lot of hard work. I then think where is the freedom of the Holy Spirit in that? However, upon reflection I come to the realization that I am wrong in my thinkIng. Spiritual disciplines actually bring the freedom of the spirit. They say if you want to be an expert in something you need to spend around 70,000 hours practicing whatever it is. I am not sure how that number was concluded, but that is just one efficiency study that was conducted. That is a really long time. The 10,000 hour rule is from a chapter in Malcolm Gladwells book, Outliers: The Story of Success. In it he popularized research by Dr. K. Anderson Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University. The idea behind this 10,000 hour rule is that we can have freedom through all this discipline. Just think about that concept as it relates to a virtuoso piano player. That piano player probably did put in over 70,000 hours of practice to get as good as they are. However, now their fingers seem to simply float over the keyboard and can make beautiful note combinations that is ecstasy to the ears. If I sat down in front of a keyboard it would have more of a cacophonous sound. I am not a virtuoso, I studied piano for one semester in college and hardly practiced. I had very little discipline and as a result, I have very little fluidity on the keys. Another great example are high end athletes. You look at some of the great hockey players from Canada, and you see that most of them started at a very young age and played for hours a day. They were dedicated and disciplined. Watching someone like Wayne Gretzky in his prime was like watching a piano virtuoso. The amount of discipline that was required on both accounts are similar. The reason we get side tracked when we talk about spiritual discipline is because we dont have a clear picture of our end goals. If we hope to be free in Christ to become like Christ, then we also need the spiritual disciplines that go along with it. Any discipline from sports to music to spiritual, without direction, is going to be painful. We need to have a clear picture as to the why. When it comes to spiritual discipline, I believe the why is spelled out for us right in scripture. 1 Timothy 4:7 tells us to discipline ourselves for the purpose of Godliness (NASB) We must first understand what we can become. This will prevent us from practicing spiritual disciplines in a state of drudgery. When we do not know the why behind spiritual disciplines, we then do it out of legalism and not freedom. When we understand we can become like Christ, our practice of Godly disciplines then leads us to become more like God. If we look back at that verse in 1 Timothy, we discover that we must discipline ourselves for the purpose of Godliness. If we are practicing spiritual disciplines for any other reasons, it will seem like a lot of hard work, and we will always fail at it. Unless our practicing is done with the purpose of Godliness we will fall short. However, dont misunderstand me. Spiritual discipline will require a lot of work. The word itself has the smell of sweat all over it. The word discipline comes from the Greek word gumnasia, which is where we get our English words gymnastics and gymnasium. The word is to exercise or to discipline. We need to train ourselves to become Godly. This indicates a lot of exercise, or spiritual discipline. That is our job, to put the work in. But we simply must have the right purpose in mind. At times I have been known to brag about how much fasting I have been doing, which makes it about me, and my very purpose for fasting is lost as a result of my ego. Look what I am doing for you God. Boy, I must be some holy. (Pat pat pat on my back). That was definitely not the right way to practice spiritual discipline. The next thing I did wrong when it came to spiritual disciplines was that I counted almost everything I was doing as a spiritual discipline. If I was sitting outside admiring beautiful scenery, I would count that as spiritual discipline. I even counted golf as a spiritual discipline at one point. I had a tendency to over-spiritualize stuff. When I was golfing I really enjoyed the scenery around me, as most golf courses are on beautiful properties and are immaculately landscaped, so I tended to say that golf was a very spiritual time for me and would count it as a spiritual discipline. What I have since learned is that spiritual disciplines for the purpose of Godliness are only found in the Bible. Spiritual disciplines are activities that I perform and not merely my attitudes towards all things spiritual. They involve me doing something. These could be activities that include: reading and meditating on Gods word. Praying, praising and worshipping, evangelism, or sharing the story of the Good News, works of service, fasting, practicing silence in the presence of God, and one of my favourites - journaling. Along with journaling and writing,I have also incorporated a prayer closet, or in my case, a furnace room. A physical place I go to be alone with God. There I get to practice many of these spiritual disciplines, while keeping in mind the whole time the purpose of why I am there, and that is to become Godly, to become more like Christ. Along with personal spiritual disciplines there are also corporate spiritual disciplines, or disciplines you take part in with a group. Both are important in our quest for Christlikeness. Attending small groups, going to worship service and participating, prayer groups et al. These are all important, but the key to remember is balance. We must balance our life. One way I have been praying as of late is for the Holy Spirit to bring that balance in all areas of my life. I know that He will do that for me, as I take the time to practice these spiritual disciplines. This is a great time of the year to start reflecting on these things. To see where I am with these disciplines. To make sure my purpose for practicing spiritual disciplines is in line with Gods word. As we head into this new year, lets make an effort to practice spiritual discipline. Lets make one New Years resolution this coming year. Lets become more like Christ by practicing spiritual disciplines. Lets allow the continual filling of the Holy Spirit into our lives. When we make this our resolution, balance will follow. That is a promise. The word January comes from the Roman God Janus who was pictured as a man with two faces. One looked back to the past and reflected, while the other looked forward to the future. As we approach January, lets practice the same thing. Lets look back and give God thanks for the many blessings, and lets look forward to a year of pursuing Godliness. Lets do it alone, and together. Lets make it the best 2015. Press on towards a relentless pursuit of Godliness! Trevor
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:28:09 +0000
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