This season of Lent at Trinity the entire church is going through the same series – the spiritual disciplines. Fasting, Prayer, Service, Accountability, Worship, and Study. (links go to audio of the services from Contact for each of the disciplines. You may also enjoy these guides as well.) Both services and every Sunday School class are diving into these six topics as we join together as a community along the journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The series is entitled Practice Makes Perfect – and that is our very goal – to practice these disciplines with the goal of becoming more like the one who is perfect – Jesus. The spiritual disciplines are vastly integral to our growth as followers of Christ and of particular significance in my own personal walk of faith. As we are diving in full speed this lent, I wanted to explore each of these topics as well here on the blog and learn together, celebrating the spiritual disciplines that guide us towards the path of perfecting who we were created to be in Christ Jesus.
In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster sets out three categories of spiritual disciplines each with four subcategories. He begins with the inward disciplines, following with the outward disciplines, and concluding with the corporate disciplines. There is a reason the subtitle of the book reads: The Path to Spiritual Growth. We are to first begin practicing the disciplines in our own lives, inwardly, changing our hearts and our very beings. Onward we move to the disciplines that have more visible fruit to the naked eye. Then together as a community of believers we join in as brothers and sisters of Christ truly becoming the hands and feet and the light of the world to those around us. I love the progression he makes, and I highly recommend this book to every individual who truly wishes to take seriously the calling on our lives to follow in the footsteps of our Savior. I encourage you to join me over the next twelve weeks or so as we dive into each of these disciplines and grow together, learning that practice makes perfect, and that there is much to celebrate by allowing our hearts to be transformed.“Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people. The classic Disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into the depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm. They urge us to be the answer to a hollow world.”
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
[…] A generalized confession may save us from humiliation and shame, but it will not ignite inner healing. Until we face the facts, it is easy to skim over the deeper issues that need to be faced. Sorrow is an issue of the will before it is an issue of the emotions. We must desire to be conquered and ruled by God, or if we do not desire it, to desire to desire it. We have to want to sin no more. While there are many who do not understand the nature and value of a confession, there are many who do and would be delighted to minister in this way. These people are found by asking God to reveal them to us and should be the ones we turn too in these times rather than those who would mock, ridicule, or shame us. Counsel in the Receiving of a Confession Once we see the awfulness of sin we know that regardless of what others have done, we ourselves are the chief of sinners. Regularly we pray for an increase of the light of Christ within us so that, as we are with others, we will radiate His life and light into them. We must keep in mind that while using the phrase “Biblical Worldview” may be a bit dangerous, we must remember that everything is filtered through the light of the cross. And most importantly, that honesty leads to confession, and confession leads to change. So in knowing these things, we must be available to receive the confession of others, and respond as Jesus would with simultaneous love and compassion as well as instruction to turn the other way. (John 8:1-11) Spiritual Discipline Series […]