Spiritual Disciplines

John Morales will be leading a 5-week study on Spiritual Disciplines from Renovare.

Excerpt from Renovare:

Spiritual Disciplines

A Practical Strategy

Prac­tices such as read­ing Scrip­ture and pray­ing are impor­tant — not because they prove how spir­i­tu­al we are — but because God can use them to lead us into life.
—John Ort­berg

Jesus is the way to life — and not just life after death, but life here and now. When he said, ​“Fol­low me,” he meant it. In all he did and taught, Jesus con­veyed that our spir­i­tu­al life takes place in our phys­i­cal real­i­ty as well as in the heart. If we believe what he said about the spir­i­tu­al life, it only makes sense we should do what he did.

The prac­tices of Jesus have been rec­og­nized for cen­turies as the core activ­i­ties of the spir­i­tu­al life. In the same way a run­ner is equipped to com­pete in a marathon by the dis­ci­pline of phys­i­cal train­ing, so train­ing through spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­plines frees us to live each day with the ​“easy yoke” and ​“light bur­den” Jesus spoke of (Matt 11:30).

Dis­ci­plines do not earn us favor with God or mea­sure spir­i­tu­al suc­cess. They are exer­cis­es which equip us to live ful­ly and freely in the present real­i­ty of God — and God works with us, giv­ing us grace as we learn and grow.