A major facet of Christian maturity involves the spiritual disciplines. These disciplines would include prayer, fasting, silence, solitude, acts of mercy, study, and corporate disciplines such as worship. Jesus is our ultimate exemplar in these pursuits. Far from being a recipe for legalism, the spiritual disciplines are time-tested methods that have worked effectively to train us to become the people we really want to become.
Dallas Willard used to say that grace is opposed to earning—not effort. While it’s true that we’re saved by grace alone, if we want to grow in spiritual maturity, we’ll need to cooperate with God’s will. Spiritual disciplines can play an indispensable part in bringing us into cooperation with God’s plan for our lives.
In our pursuit of Christlikeness, we want to avoid two extremes. On the one hand, we can overemphasize human responsibility, shortcircuiting our sense of total dependence on God. On the other hand, we can overemphasize divine sovereignty, stifling our efforts toward spiritual maturity.
Discipline and dependence ought to go hand-in-hand. My efforts to cooperate with God’s will don’t undermine His sovereignty. Willard also liked to apply the word training to the spiritual disciplines because of its practicality. Imagine if we pursued conformity to Christ with the same rigor as we do with tennis, golf, or learning an instrument or another language. The results would be radically transformative.
Our Lord Himself practiced the disciplines. If Jesus did not regard these as optional, why would we suppose we could? We would be wise to follow the master. We are thus apprentices of kingdom living. You become an apprentice, then a journeyman, and finally a master yourself. Having become a master, you continue to replicate that process. This is a matter of divine and human synergy. As Paul tells us in Philippians 2: 12-13,
"So then. My beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
But then he goes on to say, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." It’s true that Paul tells us to work out our salvation, but he also says it's God who gives us the will to do so. Inspiration still requires cooperation, and we join our efforts with God to allow him to bring about His transformation in our lives.
In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard talks about the law of indirect preparedness. A professional athlete may be captivating on the field, but it’s the intense training regimen that takes place behind the scenes that’s of true significance. The same principle applies to professional musicians. As one pianist is supposed to have said, "When I miss practice for one day, I can tell the difference. When I miss practice for two days, my critics can tell the difference. And if I missed practice for three days, my audience can tell the difference." The point is that you can never rest on yesterday's endeavor, but you must continue to habituate and practice so that you're developing and constantly growing.
What we don’t want to be are spectators. Many people begin to follow Christ with joy and enthusiasm, only to eventually drift to the sidelines, benching themselves and watching the game from the bleachers.
The aim of faithful Christians, however, is to be in the game. To be sure, this will require us to count the cost. Jesus Himself is clear on the matter. The spiritual disciplines are a means to an end, and that end is greater intimacy with Christ. While it’s true that sacrifice is involved, this vision of deeper intimacy with Jesus is the inspiration behind the training.
And there will be a definite inertia, an unwillingness, a lack of momentum at first. And yet, I've never regretted times when I've prayed and times when I've studied the scriptures, but I've often regretted times when I got out of the habit. So, if I wish to excel when it's required, this law of indirect preparedness means that what I do off the field or off the concert stage will equip me for what I need to do at the required action.
So if I view the spiritual disciplines as habits that shape my character and as a kind of divine-human synergy where I am involved in the process but at the same time I'm dependent upon the Holy Spirit to empower me, then I believe I’m moving in a process where I’m becoming more and more like Jesus through training. So it's not a matter of trying, but more a matter of training.
I believe these spiritual disciplines bestow a kind of controlled freedom to respond to changing circumstances, offering us steadiness in the midst of uncertainty. They also replace habits of sin. They actually replace the thing that you don't want with something very much better—something you do want. By replacing something we don't want with something we do want, we prepare to become the kind of person who responds as Christ would.
In Matthew 16:24, Jesus makes clear that those who follow Him must deny themselves and take up their crosses. One of the key questions to ask ourselves is, What do I want more than anything else? If I want to know Christ and become like him, I'll engage in the practices our Lord modeled. He would often withdraw to lonely places to be with the Father. We ought to do the same. It's been said that without Shabbat, there's no Shalom. Without the Sabbath, without a time of rest, reflection, and renewal, we will not be able to sink our roots more deeply into the soil of God's truth and word.
But if, instead, through practice and through habituation, we train ourselves to become more like Christ, we can become empowered to do what we want because our wants will be unified with Christ’s will.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Bohdan Bevz
Kenneth Boa equips people to love well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a writer, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life in the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
