Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life: Celebration of Discipline. The Best Practices That Transform Us: Understanding How God Changes Lives (ePub)

Spiritual Disciplines for Christian Life

Timothy 4:7: "Discipline yourself for godliness."

According to this verse, you are "disciplining yourself for godliness purposes." A Christian must discipline itself to live a distinctly Christian life. There are spiritual disciplines for godliness purposes. They don't save us, and they don't make God love us any more; they're the means God uses to conform us to the image of Christ.

Practices that might be considered Spiritual Disciplines

" The desperate requirement today is not for a higher number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but deep people."-- Richard J. Foster

Spiritual disciplines are routines, practices, and experiences that are developed to establish, grow, and reinforce certain qualities of spirit-- to develop the "muscles" of one's character and expand the breadth of one's inner life. They structure the "exercises," which train the soul. Some spiritual disciplines are personal, inward workouts that are practiced alone; others need social relationships and are practiced in the community.

Spiritual disciplines are those personal and social activities given by God in the Bible as the adequate means to be used by believers in Jesus Christ in the pursuit of godliness, that is, closeness to Christ and conformity to Christ, filled with the Spirit."

Throughout time, many philosophers, theologians, and authors have proposed several practices that might be considered spiritual disciplines. These include:

• Meditation
• Prayer
• Fasting
• Simpleness
• Fellowship
• Journaling
• Chastity
• Stewardship
• Submission/Obedience
• Research study
• Evangelism
• Reflection
• Confession
• Solitude
• Appreciation
• Self-Examination
• Silence
• Celebration

We have picked eight of these spiritual disciplines as being the most important for guys in the modern-day and inclusive of differing belief systems, and which include several of the other disciplines within them. This book will check out these eight as four complementary pairs:

• Study and Self-Examination
• Silence and Solitude (Meditation)
• Simplicity and Fasting
• Appreciation and Service