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Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
(James 4:8)
One way we can describe a life apart from Christ is in terms of our being undisciplined. We may have some practices in our lives in which we are very disciplined. For example, we may be very disciplined in regarding physical exercise, eating what is healthy, getting to work by a certain time, or even cleaning the house or doing yard work on a consistent basis. But those practices are neither focused on God, nor do they draw us near to God. Though we may be disciplining ourselves mentally and physically, we are not disciplined spiritually. We do what we want simply because we want to do it. We are void of any eternal perspective and our motives are not to draw near to God and honor Him with our lives. If we happen to know someone who engages in any of the spiritual disciplines, we may either be turned off by it or discount it by saying that each person has his or her own way of doing things. We have no interest in or awareness of the need to be disciplined regarding spiritual growth.
Interestingly the activities that are part of our coming to Christ in the first place are spiritual practices; they are spiritual disciplines. First of all, we must hear Christ proclaimed. That may occur by a person speaking to us about Christ or our reading about Christ. Either way, the word of Christ must be heard and we must think on what we have heard. Thinking about the word of God is referred to as meditation. Not the type of mediation found in the Eastern religions in which a person is encouraged to empty the mind. But a reflecting on what God has said, what it means, and how we are to respond to that truth. If we are reading the Bible in order to learn more about Jesus, and thus about God, then we are engaging in the discipline of Bible reading and even study when we begin digging deeper into what we are reading. When we arrive at the conclusion that what we have heard is true, we turn to Christ. We turn to him through confessing our sins, admitting our need for him as savior, and our belief that he is who he says he is. That Jesus is the Lord of all; the promised Messiah. We turn to Christ through the disciplines of confession and prayer. When we plug into a church, we may not realize it, but we are starting to engage in the discipline of worship. If we are invited to participate in some form of ministry, we are experiencing the discipline of service. Should we happen to be invited to a retreat or develop the practice of having a quiet time, we are diving into the discipline of solitude. What we are doing, probably without even knowing it, is we are beginning to participate in some of the spiritual disciplines within the context of a community of believers. At this point we are being exposed to the practices of the disciplines. We are not yet practicing them ourselves with the intent of drawing near to God. Nevertheless, it could be said from the standpoint of maturing in Christ, that we are cautiously discovering the spiritual disciplines. If we are to grow in Christ, then during this phase of our development, we will begin learning about the disciplines through our own discovery and through the teaching and preaching within the church. We will begin to intentionally explore and practice some of the disciplines. We will find an increasing personal desire for spiritual growth. Those who are mature in the faith, or at least more mature than us will encourage us to investigate the disciplines. The result will be that we begin engaging in some limited practices of one or more spiritual disciplines. Most likely the disciplines we will engage in the most automatically will be prayer, reading, and worship, though we may not yet see worship as a discipline.
As our knowledge of God continues to grow we find an increasing desire to draw near to God. As this desire increases, we become more aware of the spiritual disciplines. Maybe some of the disciplines standout to us in the lives of those around us. Maybe it comes out of a conversation with a spiritual mentor who is disciplining us. Perhaps our church has a class or sermons through which we learn about the disciplines. Some of us encounter them by reading the works from Christians either past or present. Whatever means God uses to bring them to our attention, we find ourselves being drawn to God through the disciplines as we see how God has used them in the lives of other Christians, past and present. Slowly, one or more of the disciplines becomes an integrated part of our life. As we grow we find ourselves exploring and considering other disciplines practice throughout the history of the Christian faith. Our aim is not to acquire or even practice all of the possible disciplines. Our aim is to draw near to God. Should a discipline enable us to focus on God more clearly, then that may become a natural part of our lives. While there is a risk of the discipline itself becoming our focus, the maturing Christian makes changes to the routine as needed in order to keep the discipline from becoming an idol. Again, our focus is on God, not the discipline. There is a sense in which, when we begin to integrate the disciplines in our lives, that our focus is more on how the disciplines benefit us and our relationship to God rather than how the discipline honors God. For example, we may develop the discipline of daily Bible reading. As we read, our knowledge of Christ increases. We gain new insights and make connections and see truths we had not seen before. We see areas of our lives being transformed, which at the time is challenging, but in the end are wonderful to us. Because of our experiences and the excitement, we shift to reading the Bible for new experiences rather than to know God. The danger is in our staying focused on the disciplines themselves and their benefit to us. As we grow in Christ, a shift begins taking place in which our focus moves from the disciplines being about us to our actually being disciplined or trained for God. In other words, we should see a shift from the disciplines being about what we get out of them, to realizing that the disciplines set us apart as holy to the Lord. Not that the disciplines produce holiness, but that as we submit to the work of God in our lives, we are made holy by God. That shift does not happen overnight and it may happen without our even recognizing it. But, if we are to be mature Christians, the shift in how we approach and engage in the disciplines, and even the reasons why we practice them, will shift.
For the mature Christian, the use of the spiritual disciplines is a part of daily life. It is how we live. They are a priority in how we live because they draw us to the Lord and the Lord is the true priority in our life. In the process of growing, we may have explored many or perhaps even all of the disciplines that are found in the body of Christ. Since the disciplines are a means to an end we do draw near to God through them, but they never control us. We may practice some of them for a season in order to focus on the Lord. Others may become such an integrated part of our lives that it is like eating, sleeping, and breathing to us. They are what God uses in our lives to sustain us and our relationship with Him. There will be some that we may not practice at all. We are aware of them, but they are not the means through which we draw near to God. We recognize that the disciplines serve the Lord by drawing us to Himself. They are not there to serve us per se, and the disciplines are certainly not there for us to serve them. We are mature Christians, not because we practice the disciplines, but we practice the disciplines because we are mature Christians. The spiritual disciplines are part of the daily life of the mature Christian. They are part of who we are and what we do in bringing glory to God. They are how we spend the time we have been given.
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