Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life – Part 2

Okay, let’s continue with our overview of the principles from the book “Spiritual Discipline For The Christian Life” which we started a few minutes ago. If you have read the first section, then go back and read “spiritual disciplines for the christian life – part 1” before you continue.

Let’s finish the other 5 spiritual disciplines…

Spiritual Discipline #6 – Stewardship
Most believers think that stewardship is simply a ministry given to pastors, church leaders, or clergy – it isn’t really passed down to every person. But the truth is, stewardship is a responsibility that is placed not only on the shoulders of every believer, but every single person on this planet.

Stewardship is really about managing and being accountable for the gifts placed into your hands or life. Whether they are your children, your business, your money, your Christian walk, your job, you are responsible for managing it with honesty and accountability.

Stewardship simply says, “What I have is only borrowed, it does not belong to me, so I will do all in my power to take excellent care of it until the owner requires it of me again“.

Spiritual Discipline #7 – Fasting
Why is this spiritual discipline important? Don’t we already pray and connect with God? Well, Jesus made a statement that sums up the importance of this particular discipline as it it relates to the life of the believer. His disciples were having a difficult time dealing with a specific problem when Jesus walked over and spoke a word that changed the situation.

Seeing them amazed at His ability to bring change where they could not, Jesus gave them His secret.  He said, “boys, this ability only comes through prayer that is connected to fasting“.

Fasting is the added thrust that prayer needs to break through the yokes of the enemy; fasting is the added ingredient that creates a powerful formula which makes prayer unstoppable – and the answers to prayer immediate and swift.  Fasting is the lifestyle in which a believer removes all distractions from his life and path except seeking the face of

God. This is a powerful timeless principle that still works today.

Spiritual Discipline #8 – Silence & Solitude
I like to call this spiritual discipline “meditating, or positioning to hear the voice of God”. This spiritual discipline is responsible for more real life success stories than any other worldly principle that have ever been shared on this planet. This is the principle that God personally gave to Joshua as the path to experiencing “good success” all the days of his life.

God told Joshua that if he “meditated in the Word and observed to do all that was written therein“, then Joshua would be empowered to cause his own way to become successful and no man would be strong enough to keep him back from what he wanted to accomplish all the days of his life.

Now isn’t that a powerful life success formula? Imagine being empowered to the point that whatever you desired to succeed in doing, you were victorious in it – and not only that, but no person had the ability to stop your success no matter what they tried to do…wow!

Spiritual Discipline #9 – Journaling
Now I know you must have read this and though, “what does writing have to do with living successfully as a believer”. This spiritual discipline is a standard trait in the lives of great achievers and men and women of great vision and success. God told Habakkuk to commit his vision to paper because whoever came behind him would be able to read and understand what he had envisioned, and they would also be able to pick up the vision and push it further to completion.

Many times, God shares wisdom lessons and insights for powerful living with us through incidents, people, and even personally, unfortunately, we are never in position to capture these inspired thoughts; thoughts that can be a blessing not only to our lives, but insight that can bring positive impact into the lives of others. This spiritual discipline keeps us in an ever-ready position to capture the wisdom and insights from God that may be left as powerful principles for even the generations yet unborn.

And finally…

Spiritual Discipline #10 – Learning
I heard someone say that “the learned will be left behind in this age, while the learners will advance to greatness“. What does that mean? Well, life is a journey, not a destination – so continual learning helps us to grow, develop and evolve in our mindset, our abilities, our skills, and even in our Christian walk.

Those who have reached a point where they are so knowledgeable that they refuse to learn anything new, will wake up to find that that world has changed so much, now they no longer have a place in it; while those who are continual learners, will continue to grow, develop, and adapt to better handle the demands of our changing world.

Take a look at God Himself. He never changes – yet His methods of doing things constantly change; the way He chooses to deal with us as individuals are so vast that it would take writers the next 200 centuries to chronicle even a fraction of what He does and how He chooses to do it. He is so immense in His ways that they are immeasurable.

We can read the same passage of scripture one hundred times, and yet the Holy Spirit can give us a fresh revelation concerning who God is through His Word every single time. So, how can we not choose to become continual learners.

These ideas are my own personal insights that came when I looked at each of the spiritual disciplines that are outlined in the book Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life. If you want to study this topic more indepth, go out and get yourself a copy of the book and continue to learn and grow.