Disciplines of the Faith: Coming Soon to The Thin Place

I have a long history of quitting things that are hard for me. Specifically, anything that requires an ounce of physical coordination/athleticism. Coming from a family that has infiltrated almost every sporting team in our area, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was partially lack of effort but in truth, I was also just really dreadful and I knew it from a young age. I hated making a fool of myself and sports were a sure fire way to do that.

So when I got a little older and came across the passage where Paul tells us to beat our bodies into submission and train like an athlete, my eyes just sorta glazed over and I flipped back to the poetic expressions of the psalmist.

As I’ve grown in age and spiritual maturity, I’ve realized the wisdom in cultivating spiritual practices that help develop my faith. I set goals and routines for virtually any other area I want to see growth—my faith should be no exception.

Discipline. It often reads like an icky word. We bristle and try to find a more loving term to use. Some people prefer using spiritual practices. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that term, I fear that we lose some of the intensity of what we called to do as believers. Discipline sounds serious because to discipline yourself is a serious pursuit.

If we are to become disciples of Jesus, if we are to pick up our cross and follow Him, if we want to cultivate holiness in our lives, spiritual disciplines must be apart of our walk.

As part of this year’s pursuit of holiness, I am vowing to realign my days to beat my body into submission.

So I’m starting a new series this upcoming week, on disciplines of the Christian faith. We will be looking at a long list of things, from prayer to fasting to service to fellowship, that God has instituted to help grow us in our walk with Him.

We will trace through different applications and ways to implement each discipline in your home and community as well as explore resources to dig deeper in our personal study.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey. Be sure to sign-up below to stay informed each week as I add to the series and to continue to the conversation in our Facebook group.

Check out my first Spiritual Disciplines post on fasting here.