Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

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But then I grew Reformed, and it helped me that I ended up pinpointing what so discomfitted me when first reading it: its emphasys on mystical disciplines deviate from Scriptures and end up deemphasysing grace in favour of a focus on works. In “The Cost of Discipleship” Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes it clear that grace is free, but it is not cheap. You may unfortunately find yourself, as I did, among a group of people agreeing to experimentally practice these disciplines and see if Foster is not perhaps telling some truths. But in the same way God showed me the things I could take from the youth Portakabin into the rest of my life, I believe God wants us to take things from lockdown into the rest of our lives both for our own walk with God and what we bring to our congregations and churches when we can meet together again.

Celebration of Discipline will help Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth. Let me make this personal: In my relationship with God, I have tended to love him like a much loved relative I see often. Three keys to simplicity are: 1) treat all as a gift from God, 2) ask all to be cared for by God, and 3) make all available to others (p.

I KNOW I struggle to maintain focus listening to audio books if they aren't fast-paced and engaging. This was his highest and most holy work, the work that makes confession and the forgiveness of sins possible…Some seem to think that when Jesus shouted “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? however, Foster puts too little emphasis on the need to be grounding everything in scripture, and checking everything with scripture.

In the years after this as my husband Stew and I moved and joined a new church, we took those lessons with us. The purpose of the Discipline of submission is to liberate us from the tyranny of our own wills (pp. And though George Carlin was an atheist, he can explain my sentiments here more succinctly than I ever could.The last twinges of evil, hostility, anger, and fear drained out of him, and he was able to turn again into the light of God’s presence. How could you begin a conversation with Jesus throughout your day which sets a different posture of your heart to worship him? In fact, your church may become so enamored with the idea of intimacy with God that they decide to fast regularly as a body and seek that intimacy together using the disciplines to propel them a bit deeper into Spirit-churned waters. Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness.