Linkage: Discipline-The Means to an End

Spiritual disciplines are essential for us to mature as followers of Jesus.  Speaking from my personal experience I was frustrated and my spiritual growth was stunted when I did not value spiritual disciplines in my life.  

Another reason I know that spiritual disciplines are essential for our spiritual development is become of the importance self-discipline is for life.  We cannot learn to do anything well without disciplining our selfs to set aside the time to do it, to learn the techniques, and to practice.  Discipline is the means to personal growth.  That is the point of this manvotional posted at The Art of Manliness.

From Self-Knowledge and Self-Discipline, 1916
By Basil William Maturin 

We do not endure [self-discipline] merely for its own sake, but for what lies beyond it. And we bear those acts of self-denial and self-restraint because we feel and know full well that through such acts alone can we regain the mastery over all our misused powers and learn to use them with a vigour and a joy such as we have never known before… 

It is as though one who had a great talent for music but had no technical training, and consequently could never produce the best results of his art, were to put himself under a great master. The first lessons he will have to learn will be, for the most part, to correct his mistakes, not to do this and not to do that; it will seem to him that he has lost all his former freedom of expression, that he is held back by all sorts of technical rules, that whenever he seeks to let himself go he is checked and hampered. And it is no doubt true. But he will soon begin to realise that as he learns more and suffers in the learning, possibilities of utterance reveal themselves which he has never dreamed of.

Continue reading Discipline-The Means to an End.

Linkage: How to Memorize Scripture

One of the disciplines that many of us who follow Jesus today lack is the discipline of Scripture memorization.  We see it as a good thing for children to do, so we have memorization contests at church camp and VBS, but many of us don't see the need to spend the time memorization Scripture.  Part of this is due to the fact that we have the Bible available to us.  Many of us have multiple versions of the Bible laying all around the house, we can access the Bible online from our computer, and we have a couple of versions of the Bible on our phones.  If we want to we can literally pull up a Bible verse from where ever we may be.  While technology has been wonderful in the way, and has given more people greater access to the Bible than ever before, it has also made us lazy in actually knowing Scripture, meditating on it, and hiding it in our hearts.

You and I can memorize Scripture, and it is something that we should discipline ourselves to do on a regular basis.  Professor Mark Moore from Ozark Christian College has a short essay which provides a few tips on how to memorize Scripture effectively.  I hope this proves helpful to you.

If you know your name, address and telephone number, then you can no longer say, "I just can't memorize." We memorize words to songs, important dates, and the names of new friends. We certainly can memorize Scripture. The real question is how long it will take. You can't expect to memorize a passage five minutes before class. For most people it will take about three consecutive days to put it into long-term memory. Plan on a schedule something like this: 

1. 10 minutes per verse to memorize it the first time.
2. 5 minute review right before bed, for three evenings (this allows your subconscience to work on it while you sleep).
3. 5 minute review the first thing in the morning, for three days.

Continue reading How to Memorize Scripture.

Daily Thought: Don't Neglect Spiritual Discipline

Any neglect of spiritual devotion must result in lukewarmness. Oh, how unreasonable is man and how easily the desires of the flesh deceive! If you neglected to water your garden, you would not wonder for a moment why it was drying up. Then, when you are neglecting to water the soul in vigorous, spiritual exercises, why do you wonder at your being so spiritually dull?

Orr, Charles Ebert (2004-11-01). How to Live a Holy Life (p. 47). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Training to be Like Jesus

We have heard the old saying; “Practice makes perfect,” and we accept the truth that it teaches.  If we are going to do anything well we have practice doing it.  For the musician that means learning how to read music, learning to play scales, and learning to keep time before any actual music can even be played.  Even then hours of practice are required to play a piece of music well.

An athlete has to learn the basics of fundamentals of his sport, to spend time lifting weights, and running laps before the game can be played.  Likewise it requires hours of practicing the game before an actual can be played so that both player and team can play well.

Practice is an universal law on how to improve a skill or a talent.  With this being the case it is hard to imagine why we have overlooked it when it comes to our spiritual development.  Perhaps it is because we don’t want to be accused of being focused on “works,” so we live our lives frustrated that we are not doing better while waiting for God to magically make us perfect.  I am sorry, but I am afraid it doesn’t work like that.

C. E. Orr in his book How to Live a Holy Life wrote; “If you neglected to water your garden, you would not wonder for a moment why it was drying up. Then, when you are neglecting to water the soul in vigorous, spiritual exercises, why do you wonder at your being so spiritually dull?” (p.47).  The problem with many Christians today isn’t that they lack love or faith, but they lack the understanding that they need to be involved in spiritual exercise in order to become mature followers of Jesus.

Reflect on what the apostle Paul told Timothy:

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come (1 Timothy 4:6-8; ESV).

It appears to me that Paul is trying to remind Timothy not to waste his life in doing things that are not eternally important.  He could spend his life to argue against the silly myths of the day, which would take time but be ineffective and thus be a waste of his time.  Timothy could devote his time to healthy living and exercise, which would benefit the body, but has little eternal value.  Instead Paul says he should train for godliness.  How does one do that?

If we follow the examples of a musician and an athlete that I gave earlier there are two facets of this train.  First there are committing to the spiritual disciplines.  These are activities that have historically proven to help people mature as Christians, and they are things that Jesus himself did while he was here on earth.  These disciplines include activities such as Bible study, prayer, fasting, giving, and worship.  These things are the equivalent of learning how to play a music scale or learning how to dribble a basketball.  They are want teaches your mind, heart, soul, and body what to do when faced with the reality of life.

Second there are what I will call the Christian duties.  Things like serving people, teaching, and taking a stand for what is right.  These are things that don’t come naturally to us, and things we don’t always feel like doing, and that is why they become duties.  When we do them, even when we don’t want to or have a great love in our heart for God, they teach us about humility and what it means to love those who may not love you back.  These duties are much like practice.  It is boring and becomes old hat to play the same piece of music a thousand different times or to go to basketball practice day after day and compete against the same people, but you do it, even when you don’t want to, because you know it will prepare you for the real thing.  These duties are like that, they are not always fun, but they are preparing us so we can respond to the realities of life out of love, goodness, and self-control.

If we are going to be like Jesus we need to train to be like Him, it isn’t going to magically happen.  It is going to take a lot of hard work on our part and a lot of grace on God’s part, but together it can happen!

Daily Thought: Exercise for Godliness

"The grace of godliness in the Christian character is capable of cultivation and increase. There is a law in both the material and spiritual that exercise is conducive to growth. The Spirit-filled apostle said, 'Exercise thyself unto godliness.' In the Emphatic this reads, 'Train thyself for piety.' Here is something for every soul that has any aspiration to be more godly in life. Train yourself for piety. To become of deeper piety and more godly is the joy of the Christian heart. By training we become more pious. The lawn-tender forms an espalier by intertwining the branches of the vine. He keeps intertwining them as they grow, and by such training forms a latticework made of shrubbery. The soul intertwined with the meek and lowly life of Jesus will form a character of deep piety and sincere godliness. The daily life should be intertwined with the life of Jesus. Let there be no reaching out for anything outside of him. For a proper development of the Christian graces there must be a constant training or intertwining of the soul with God. This linking more tightly is the result of growth, and growth is produced by exercise, and exercise consists in reading the Scriptures, in prayer, and in deep thought or heart-communion with God. The athlete takes such exercises and eats such foods as will most properly develop and strengthen his muscles."

Orr, Charles Ebert (2004-11-01). How to Live a Holy Life (p. 40). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

A Mark of Maturity

Author Dallas Willard in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines wrote; “Here as always—whether in our natural life or in our spiritual life—the mark of disciplined persons is that they are able to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.” (p. 151) It is the disciplined person who is able to come through in the clutch and does not allow the pressure of the moment to rattle him/her from accomplishing what needs to be done.

It was the discipline of shooting thousands of baskets that enabled basketball legend Larry Bird to be such a great clutch performer. Without the hours of intense practice Bird would never have been able to hit as many last second shots as he did. It wasn’t about having good intentions, but it was about training his body to respond in a certain way, and that is what made it possible for him to be so great.

We understand the importance of discipline in the arenas of sports and music, but often we neglect it when it comes to living a life of faith. Somehow we have told ourselves that what matters are our good intentions, and if we are willing to follow Jesus then that is good enough. The problem is that when the chips are down and life is stacked against us we often fail. We can’t come through in the clutch because we have not trained our bodies to respond in the right way. Let’s face it; many of us are undisciplined.

I would guarantee that if we examined the lives of people who are considered to have a mature faith one thing they all would have in common is discipline. Granted they may not call it discipline, but they would have certain activities that they were devoted to doing which would express their commitment to Christ Jesus.

A verse that has come to mean a lot to me the past few months is Acts 2:42. In this verse Luke shares with us four activities that the earlier church devoted themselves to doing.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (ESV)

As the Church exploded on to the scene the Apostles made sure that the new Believers were involved in activities that would encourage these new disciples and would help them mature in their faith. Being disciplined is essential if we are going to be mature disciples of Christ.

Consider what the apostle Paul wrote about who he lived his life:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; ESV)

Paul compares his walk with Christ to an athlete preparing to compete in the games. The athlete is disciplined in his/her practice so they will be able to perform to the best of their ability and when the prize. According to Paul that is an illustration for how we are to live our lives: we are to discipline our bodies and learn to control them. Maturing in faith isn’t just a matter of knowing more or having the proper intentions, but it is about training our bodies to respond to the good desires of our new hearts. We are to discipline our bodies so we can respond in love when others respond in hate, so we can respond with joy for another person’s success rather than being jealous, or so we can give generously rather than greedily horde what we have. If we are going to live like Jesus, then we need to discipline our bodies to respond to the new heart He has given us.

Erwin McManus in his little book Stand Against the Wind wrote:

There is a process in our becoming all that God created us to be. This is the human side of divine change. Transformation is both the miracle of God and the stewardship of man. Godliness is a result of both divine activity and human action. God promises to do what we cannot do for ourselves, and He commands us to do that which He will not do for us. There is both miracle and responsibility. God entrusts us with His resources, and then He holds us accountable for what we do with them.” (p. 46)

Foundational to what I am saying is that our transformation and salvation are the miracles of God. We cannot achieve true transformation, a total change of heart, without the initiative and action of God. That is where it all starts, and so I am not advocating some form of humanism here, but rather I want to point out that we have a responsibility to nurture and grow this wonderful gift that God has given to us. To be disciplined means to be good stewards of what God has done for us.

What disciplines do we need in our lives in order to be good stewards of the new life we have in Christ Jesus? I think a good place to start, because it comes right out of the Bible, are the four activities of Acts 2:42. I would simply want to point out that the third activity, the breaking of bread, means the Lord’s Supper. This is a debatable issue, but in my study I have come to believe that is what it this phrase means in this context. One of the reasons I want to emphasis this because it is important for us to have a way to re-commit our lives to God’s Kingdom after we have stumbled and sinned.

If we are going to mature as disciples of Christ Jesus then it is essential that we have in our lives certain disciplines that help teach our bodies to live by faith. That is why one of the marks of mature Christians is their commitment to certain activities that they have found help them stay connected to Christ. If we are to follow their example then we need to have similar activities as a part of our lives. Isn’t it about time that we live a disciplined life?

A New Way of Living

In his book The Spirit of the Disciplines author Dallas Willard writes; “Jesus’ teaching does not lay out safe generalizations by which we can engineer a happy life. Instead, it is designed to startle us out of our prejudices and direct us into a new way of thinking and acting.” (p. 205) Jesus didn’t come to live and to die so we could have the life that we always wanted. Instead, Jesus came to give us the life that we truly needed, and that should look radically different from the sort comfortable life we imagined ourselves living.

I think most of us recognize that our lives are a mess. Certainly some of us have more of a mess than others, but none of us have been able to escape the hurt, the addictions, the guilt, the shame, or any of the other consequences of living in a world dominated by sin. Not only do we need someone to come and clean the mess up for us, but we also need to be taught how to avoid making messes in the future. The life that is available in Christ Jesus isn’t just a life that is cleansed of sin by the atonement, but it is also a life that is guided by the Spirit into good works. In other words we don’t just add Jesus to our lives to escape the consequences of sin, but we surrender our lives to His guidance so we can live the life that He created us to live.

Think on what the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20; I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (ESV) Is that the way you would describe your life? The Christian is to live his or her life the way Christ would have them live.

How is that possible? It is possible when we familiarize ourselves with Jesus’ teachings. This requires us to spend time in the Bible reading and studying what it contains, especially the New Testament, which contains Jesus’ teachings and the teachings of His earliest disciples. So many people are led astray because they think they have a general understanding of what Jesus said, but they have never truly taken to heart His teachings.

We can live our lives as Jesus would live them when we follow the example of Jesus. Again this requires us to be familiar with what the New Testament says, particularly the Gospels which tell us about Jesus’ life. In the Gospels we read that Jesus took time to pray, to fast, to serve, to study Scripture, and to seek times of solitude. These were disciplines Jesus did in order to maintain a connection with His Father in Heaven. It was through this connection with the Father that guided Jesus in His ministry (John 17:4). If Jesus found that these disciplines were necessary for maintaining His connection with the Father, then it would seem to me that these disciplines would be essential for us to live the life we were created to live. Spiritual disciplines are not about earning God’s favor or earning salvation, but rather they are about learning to live a life that is guided by the Spirit.

There is more to Jesus’ example. His example shows us that we are to love all people, not just those who are easy to love. While the world pulls us towards the rich and famous, the way of Jesus pulls us towards the down and out. Instead of using people in ways that benefit us, the way of Jesus tells us to find people we can serve who will not be able to pay us back in kind.

Last of all, if we are going to allow Jesus to live our lives we need to check the motivation of our hearts. Much of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) deals with the reality that the heart of the matter is the heart. It isn’t enough not to do evil, but we have to understand the motivation of our hearts. When the heart isn’t right then it really doesn’t matter what we do. How can we fix our heart? The only way I know of dealing with a heart problem is through prayer. We need to ask God to bind up our broken hearts and to restore our souls. As our hearts are healed and we are restored to wholeness we are better able to live life in a brand new way.

We must never leave what Christ has done for us at forgiveness of our sins. That is a great and wonderful gift, but His death and resurrection is a promise of so much more. Through Jesus Christ we are able to finally live life; life the way it was originally designed to be lived.

Spiritual Discipline and Sexual Purity

The promise of God is that He will give us new life.  This is true and eternal life. We receive this life when we have a connection with Jesus. In John 15:5 we read that Jesus told His apostles; “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (NLT). Similarly the apostle Paul wrote, Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done (Colossians 2:7; NLT). We draw our life from Christ Jesus, and so it is vital that we remain connected to Him.

We need to remember what our true source of life is. We cannot live the life God created us to live apart from Jesus. Try as hard as we might and erect as many laws as we can and we will still fall short of what God intends our lives to be. Sexual purity is so hard to maintain because if we are not connected to Jesus all of our boundaries and rules will eventually fail us. Remember what Jesus said, “For apart from me you can do nothing”, and that includes remaining sexually pure.

You may be wondering, “Why does sexual purity matter?” This is a very good question since it would not be worth the struggle if sexual purity wasn’t an essential part of living the life God has created us to live. Sexual purity matters because pre-marital sex and extra-material sex rob us of the life that God designed us to live. Rather than bringing us closer to God sex, when done outside of the bounds of marriage, takes us further away from God.

At least that has been the case in my life, and think the testimony of many other people would confirm this reality. Let me clarify, I have never had sex, but that doesn’t mean that I have always held sex in the sacred place it deserves. In the relationships that I have been in we have established appropriate boundaries, yet I always wanted to push those boundaries. To be brutally honest the reason I wanted to push those boundaries had nothing with showing her my love, but had everything to do with gratifying my selfish desires. This led me to see her, not as a person, but as an object to satisfy my lust. In a very real sense my actions led me to dehumanize the woman I was with.

The spiritual life that God wants us to live should lead us to do the opposite. As followers of Christ Jesus we are to bring dignity, respect, and love into the lives of people. In other words we are to treat people as image-bearers of God and not objects that we can use for our enjoyment. Sexual purity is important because it helps us to treat people the way God intended us to treat them.

It is hard to be sexually pure when there is so much fighting against us in this commitment. I don’t need to tell you what a cesspool our culture is in regards to sex. We all know that sex is every where, and it is often being pushed right in our faces. We can’t even go to the store without 20 different magazine covers declaring that they have the secret to a happy and exciting sex life (the fact that magazines feel the need to keep offering this advice should tell us something: THEY DON’T HAVE THE SECRET!). For honesty sake we have to admit that the world is opposed to our desire to be sexually pure, and therefore this is not going to be easy. Yet, I am also fully convinced that sexual purity is the best way to live life.

With so much against us, how can we remain sexually pure? First, it begins with an understanding of what is truly important in life. A poor person who is greedy will spend his/her time thinking about and scheming to get money. They do this because they believe that money is the most important thing in life and if they only had money then they would be happy. Many of us act the same way when it comes to sex. We don't have it, but we act like it is the missing part of the happy life. We have to come to an understanding that we don’t need sex to have a happy and fulfilled life, and so we don’t need to think about all the time or scheme to find loopholes so we can see how much we can experience of it without going all the way. To come to this realization requires three steps.

First, we will have to get rid of the media that fuels our hearts and minds. We have to be ruthless when it comes to getting rid of movies, TV shows, and music that lead us to fantasize and thus lead our desires and thoughts astray. I took time last year to go through my DVD collection, and when I picked up a movie if the first thought I had about it was a sex scene or a female in some sexy outfit I threw that DVD away. We get enough of the “just do it” message from living in the world, we don’t need to make things harder by intentionally bringing that message into our lives. Along this same line we need to establish other limits for protection. On my MacBook and iPod Touch I have a filter system called Safe Eyes. Not only does it filter out unwanted content, but it also allows me to establish time limits on my internet access (because even the best filter will allow filth in). If we are not intentional about setting boundaries for what we allow into our hearts and minds then we will discover that so much of what consumes our thought life is impure and unhealthy.

Second we have to intentionally find ministries to which we can volunteer our time. Ministry (we could also call it service) is vital for our spiritual lives. It reminds us that the world doesn’t revolve around us and our lives, and that there are people in this world who are in tremendous need, whether that need is physical or spiritual. When we serve we are expressing our love for people, and though the process God reminds us that there is a higher calling on our lives than sex, and that is making a difference for His Kingdom. Not only does ministry remind us that there is a call upon our lives, but it also puts us into experiences where sex isn't front and center.

Third we have to devote ourselves to our spiritual lives. Too many of us neglect the spiritual side of our lives, and thus we lose the vital connection we need with Jesus. In order to maintain a connection with Christ Jesus we need to establish certain disciplines in our lives. One of the fundamental disciplines that we need is prayer. While we can pray anywhere and at anytime there is something that is essential in having a time we have set aside to spend time alone with God. Two things have proved helpful to me in this. First, is to have a private place for prayer. Second, is to pray aloud. I have found that this helps me to stay focused and actually talk to God in the way I would talk to a person.

To go along with prayer we need to be in God’s Word. This isn’t just about reading the Bible, but it is about getting God’s Word into our hearts. When we go to the Bible the agenda isn’t about how much we read, but planting God’s truth into our hearts. This will also require times of quiet meditation or reflection in order to concentrate on what God is communicating through the Bible. It also requires memorizing Scripture so that we are able to recall God’s truth and promises as we go about our day.

There is so much more that could be said, but I want to end with this thought: Sexual purity is the result of our pursuit of holiness. If we desire sexual purity but don’t desire holiness in other areas of our lives we will not be sexually pure. The spiritual disciplines, those actions which keep us connected to Jesus, are the ways we train our bodies in the way of holiness. That is why sexual purity isn’t just about making a decision (of course that is where it starts) but it is about training our bodies to obey God’s will for our lives. We will not do that unless we see sexual purity as something worth fighting for, and only then will we devote our entire lives to prepare for that fight.

United with Jesus

The Christian has a special relationship with God because of Jesus Christ. Our relationship with God is not based on anything that we have done, not by our merit, but solely on what Jesus has done. We are able to enjoy a relationship with God because we have been united with Jesus.

The first part of Romans 6 reveals three areas in which we have been united with Jesus:

1Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? 2Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? 4For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. 6Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life. 9We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. 11So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus. ~ Romans 6:1-11; NLT

First we see that we are united with Jesus in His death (verses 1-3). This is made possible through baptism. This is one of the passages in the New Testament which remind us that the ritual of baptism was a very important part of the believer’s life. So what does this mean? Why do we want to be united with Jesus in His death? Jack Cottrell commenting on this passage wrote:

“Since Jesus died for the express purpose of taking our guilt upon Himself and paying the eternal penalty for our sins, when we are united with Him in his death our guilt is removed and our status before God is such that our penalty is considered paid. The blood that He shed in His death is applied to our guilty souls and becomes our shield to protect us from the deserved wrath of God. Thus because of this union with Christ we are forgiven or justified” (Baptism: A Biblical Study; p. 81).

It is this union with Jesus in His death which guarantees that our sins are taken care of. We have put our faith in Jesus and His death to cleanse us from our sins.

Second we see that we are united with Jesus in His resurrection (verses 4-6). Jesus may have been crucified and killed, but He did not remain dead. The power of Jesus is ultimately seen in His resurrection, not His death. The death of Jesus means nothing without the resurrection.

When we are united with Jesus in His resurrection means that we have a new life. Whoever we were before our baptism no longer exists, and now we have a new life. Even though we still live in the flesh, when we follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and live a life of faith, our lives change. It is a process that continues to happen as long as we live in our current bodies, but our hearts shift from being selfish to selfless, and we begin love God with our entire beings.

Not only are we given new lives, but being united with Jesus in His resurrection also guarantees that when we die, physically, that we will be raised to spend eternity with God. When we are united with Jesus we have hope of eternal life.

Third we see that we are united with Jesus in His freedom (verses 7-11). Sin no longer has control over us. We now have a choice on how we will live. Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life wrote; “On the path to spiritual maturity, even temptation becomes a stepping-stone rather than a stumbling block when you realize it is just as much an occasion to do the right thing as it is to do the wrong thing. Temptation simply provides the choice” (p. 201). No longer do we have to follow our sinful desires, but we have a choice. Now we have the option to follow where Jesus leads.

The commands of God are not restricting, rather they help us to avoid the enslaving nature of sin. Jesus understood this freedom during His time on earth. He was perfectly obedient to God’s will, and thus Jesus escaped being enslaved by sin. When we are united with Jesus we are given the opportunity to experience the freedom from sin as we live a life of faith and obedience.

Christians are united with Jesus and this gives us a special relationship with God. Since we have been given this wonderful opportunity we need to take advantage of it and discover the life God has planned for us. We need to live a life which will reflect the glory and love of the One who has given us so much.

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Dry and Empty

The past few days I have felt very empty. What I have posted are old ponderings I posted over a year ago. There just has not been thinking about anything of relevance to this blog in days.

Part of that has to do with the fact that I have not cracked open my Bible or done any other reading of significance. The fuel for my ponderings is what I read. So if I am not reading things that spur my thoughts then I am not thinking.

This reality prompted my thinking: it is important for us to replenish our fuel. We can't keep going on with a limited amount of fuel. Whether we are talking about gas for our cars, food for our bodies, or information for our brains we must keep putting the fuel in or otherwise we will run out.

Now I could give you reasons why I haven't kept up on my reading like I should, but they would really be excuses. We make time to do what is important, and the truth is the past few days reading the Bible and reading about being a Christ-Follower just hasn't been very important to me.

Isn't this something we all struggle with from time to time? Life gets in the way, new circumstances get in the way, and those disciplines that keep us connected to God get pushed aside. At first we don't even notice it, but after while we notice the change in our outlook on life, in our conduct towards other people, and our ability to ponder the wonders of God. We can't do much good if we are dry and empty.

So when life throws off our routine and messes with our disciplines we have to be quick to adapt or we might lose those things altogether. The importance isn't when we do these things, but that we do them. With that being said I need to go; I have some reading that I need to do.

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