I’m currently reading through Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes. (I’ve only just started, so I’ll withhold a recommendation or a review until I’ve finished.) Yesterday I sat down to answer the study questions for chapter 1. I found the first of those questions, which concerns the definition of spiritual discipline, an appropriate subject of contemplation not just for myself but for many of my friends who have more than usual solitary free time in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine. What follows is the fruit of my own contemplation, and I hope it offers helpful perspective and guidance to those of you who are perhaps giving an unusual degree of attention to the state of spiritual discipline in your lives in this unique time. In this article I attempt to provide a thorough definition of what spiritual discipline is in a way that will help us engage in spiritual disciplines more worshipfully and fruitfully. I’d like to start by giving you my own definition, and then show you step-by-step how I arrive at that definition.
I would define spiritual discipline as the God-centered, gospel-enabled, Spirit-empowered, conscious and deliberate training of one’s whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to be set apart for the praise and enjoyment of God through obedience to His commandments, in anticipation of eternity spent with Him. Spiritual discipline is driven by delight in God that is stirred up by the perfection of who He is and His love for and delight in us.
To better understand what spiritual discipline is, let’s break this definition down by considering five essential components. These five components are the orientation (who it’s for) the motive force (what’s the power source), the subject (what it happens to), the action (what it does), and the objective (or the end goal) of spiritual discipline.
First, the orientation of spiritual discipline is God-centered, not self-centered. It’s not about self-promotion, but about the revelation of God’s glory in us as we become progressively more and more conformed to the image of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:23-24, Colossians 3:10), for the sake of His name and His praise. All-consuming delight in who God is and in His love for us is a prerequisite for growth in godliness. When we delight in God for who He is, spiritual discipline becomes a means and an invitation by which we pursue fellowship with God in the sweetness of His perfect character. But if we only love God for what He can do or has done for us, then it’s impossible for our attempts at spiritual discipline to be anything more than self-centered bargaining with God for our own glory and pleasure in ourselves. At the same time, it’s possible to have some conception of the greatness and majesty of God without a deep assurance of His love for us. When this is true, spiritual discipline quickly devolves into a self-centered attempt to obtain for ourselves from God or from other people what God has already richly provided for us in Jesus Christ. When we try to earn love by spiritual discipline, it’s as if we are kicking down a door to the Father’s house that has already been opened by the blood of Jesus. It’s as though we are trying to steal from the pantry what has already been set before us on the Father’s table. It’s a sad, lonely, foolish, and pointless way to live. But when we humble ourselves to receive the Father’s love freely given to us in Jesus Christ, we come to understand that there is nothing we can do to diminish God’s pleasure in us as His children, or to seal us off from the welcome we have to His love through Jesus Christ. Our sin will never bolt God’s door or fold His arms toward us. His unchangeable welcome for and delight in us is the very reason for His discipline of us (cf. Hebrews 12:6) and His call for us to discipline ourselves (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2).
Because spiritual discipline is God-centered, it directs us to be others-centered through Him. One of the essential ways that we increase God’s praise and the enjoyment of our fellowship with Him is displaying His love in serving others. The flesh has nothing to give to other people; all the rivers of the will of the flesh run into the sea of its own self-promotion and praise. But when the Spirit turns our hearts to God, we are able to love others out of the abundant overflow of the satisfying love we have found in God.
The God-centered nature of spiritual discipline excludes any ambitious pursuit of self-actualization. Our goal in spiritual discipline is not to actualize ourselves or realize our own potential, but to actualize and realize the potential of Christ in us (cf. Ephesians 4:13) through His power (cf. John 15:5) for the praise of God (cf. Matthew 5:16, John 15:8). Self-actualization leads to boasting and idolatry. The actualization of Christ is only possible through humility, through the discipline of confessing our sins and believing the promises of God. From beginning to end the work of Christ-actualization in us glorifies His love and power and leaves no room for boasting in ourselves.
Second, the motive force of spiritual discipline is the power of the Holy Spirit through ongoing faith in the gospel. Spiritual discipline is gospel-enabled. Because Jesus took on the punishment for our sin on the cross and endured the wrath of God, we know that there is no condemnation left for us to face. Jesus has already clothed us in His righteous reputation, and we have access through Him to the infinite resources of a Father who loves us and is infinitely for us! If all this wasn’t true, spiritual discipline would be an endless effort to win a battle for perfection that we have already lost. But because of the cross, spiritual discipline isn’t an effort to obtain or increase God’s love. It’s an effort to enter more fully into the day-to-day experience of God’s love through agreement with what He says about our identity–that we are the free and holy children of God set apart from sin by the work of Christ and called to live in His likeness.
Because spiritual discipline is Gospel-enabled, it is also Spirit-empowered. One of the most hopeful and life-giving realities of the Gospel is freedom from the power of our sinful nature. In Galatians 5:16, God commands us through the words of the apostle Paul to “walk by the Spirit,” with the promise that if we do so we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Without the Gospel, this would be impossible! Earlier in Galatians, Paul rhetorically asks, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:2) We don’t receive the Holy Spirit through our efforts to obey God’s commandments. Without the Holy Spirit, all we have to work with in living for God is our fallen sinful nature, which is only capable of producing all of the things that disqualify us from entering God’s kingdom on our own merits (Galatians 5:19-21). So if it was up to us to obtain the Holy Spirit by our good works, living for God would be impossible! We’d be left to our resources of our flesh, which is unable to please God (Romans 8:8). But through faith in Christ, we have access to the “Spirit of His Son” (Galatians 4:6) that assures us of our place in God’s family and enables us to walk out our union with Christ. As we abide in Him through the kind of gospel faith that produces obedience, we participate in His spiritual life and bear the fruit through Him that brings praise to God (John 15:3-8).
Third, the subject of spiritual discipline is the heart, soul, mind and strength of the child of God. This encompasses all that we are as living people; it is concerned with our thoughts, our desires, our beliefs, our affections, our words, and our actions. Spiritual discipline is concerned with the whole person because the jealous claims of God extended to every aspect of our personhood as people created in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of His son (cf. I Corinthians 6:19-20). It is the direction of “all my being’s ransomed powers” (to borrow a phrase from the hymn-writer) to the service of God’s purposes of my life. Therefore, spiritual discipline is not just concerned with our actions. It is not just concerned with what other people can see. Nor is it just concerned with our souls, with the inner life. It is concerned with establishing God’s rule in our whole lives from the inside out: our thoughts, our perspectives, our values, our work, our recreation, our relationships, our sexuality, our private life, and our public worship. The blood of Christ, which redeems us from sin, transfers of the ownership of our whole lives into the hands of God, our Father. Spiritual discipline is how God’s beloved children respond to that transfer by learning to walk in love (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2).
Fourth, the action of spiritual discipline is the conscious and deliberate training of the whole person to obey God’s commandments. Because the motive force of spiritual discipline is ongoing faith in the Gospel that accesses the power of the Holy Spirit, the first and most essential discipline that we must practice as believers in Christ is to hold fast to hope of the Gospel (cf. Hebrews 10:23) and the second is to plead without ceasing for the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 11:5-13). But spiritual discipline does not stop there. We don’t simply believe, pray, and wait for holiness to happen. No, we are to engage every area of our lives with the confidence that God is supplying the strength and energy of Christ to our souls, and then struggle with all his energy that he powerfully works within us (cf. Colossians 1:29). The fact that it is the power of God that enables us to discipline ourselves for godliness does not exempt us from toil, labor, hardship and struggle in the pursuit of godliness. The Christian life is a life of rigorous effort and steadfast striving (cf. 2 Timothy 2:3). It is not a life of striving for love but a life of striving from love. But we are foolish to think that we can obtain excellence in godliness if we are unwilling to suffer for it. In order to grow in Christ, we must persistently engage the hostility of our own flesh (cf. I Corinthians 9:27), the hostility of Satan (cf. Eph. 6:12), and the hostility of a sinful world (cf. Hebrews 12:2). This engagement involves blood (cf. Hebrews 12:3), sweat (cf. I Timothy 4:7), and tears (cf. Acts 20:31). We cannot coast our way into the likeness of Christ. There’s no middle ground. Either we are being built up in Christ or we are allowing our gains in godliness to erode (cf. Proverbs 19:8).
So how do we discipline ourselves for godliness? Should we create a system of rewards and punishments for good and bad behaviors, and gather accountability partners around us to enforce these rules? Do we take vows of asceticism and join the monastery? If we trust in God as a good and present Father, we can see that we don’t need to resort to self-made religion (cf. Colossians 3:23); all of the direction that we need for spiritual discipline is given to us in His commandments (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17). Remembering and obeying our Father’s family rules will help us learn and grow into maturity. All of God’s commandments are an invitation for us to experience fellowship with Him in the goodness of His character, and to allow Him to lead us into the fullest possible experience of His love. We don’t need to invent a harsh regimen for our lives to help us be holy; we simply need to find out what God wants us to be about, and carefully budget our time and energy for the things that He calls us to prioritize and put into practice. Then we need to follow through and actually form habits that reflect God’s priorities.
For me, this means setting a reasonable bedtime and wake-up time so that I’m not losing hours to excessive sleep that really should be spent working or studying or investing in my relationship with God and others. It means setting my alarm on my phone and putting it away at least half an hour before I go to bed so that I get quality sleep and wake up rested and ready for the next day. It means subscribing to an app and making a plan so that I can memorize and engage deeply with longer portions of Scripture. It means keeping a prayer list through another app on my phone. It means buying a little journal and writing down the works of the LORD in my life so I don’t forget them. It means buying another little journal and writing down God’s commandments so that I don’t miss His invitation to a life of fellowship with Him in the midst of pursuing my own agenda. It means setting aside a certain amount of time every morning and evening to be alone with God so that I can hear from Him, process the cares and concerns of life, and just enjoy His presence. It means consistently participating in worship at my church and fellowship with my small group, even when those activities are impacted by quarantine restrictions! These are some of the disciplines in my life (some of them very new to me) that are helping me live a focused and fruitful way.
But the real substance of spiritual discipline isn’t in practicing these kinds of habits. It’s in the moment-by-moment decisions we make to turn to, engage with, listen to, obey, and seek God–or not. No amount of memorizing Scripture will help me if I don’t seek God to understand His word and allow it to examine my heart. No amount of studying and remembering God’s commandments will be profitable to me if I’m not willing to obey right away, even when it costs me. Setting aside time to pray won’t help me if I don’t engage my mind and heart in passionately seeking God. Just showing up for worship and small group is pointless if I’m not willing to be fully present with my gifts, receive care through the gifts of others, and work hard at my relationships. Spiritual discipline is much more about applying ourselves to godliness in the moment than it is about structures and schedules. Habits are helpful and can be used by God to fashion our lives for His glory, but they can’t help a hard heart or a mind that’s checked out. What they can do is help us routinely confront ourselves with the need to engage our whole selves in the hard work of seeking and serving Christ, and that’s where their true value lies.
Fifth, the objective of spiritual discipline is that we would fulfill our created purpose in this life, which, in the oft-quoted words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.“ We glorify God by proclaiming His praise, by putting on display the power of His redeeming grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, by declaring His worth in the devotion of our whole lives to Him, and by revealing the beauty of His character and personality in the way that we live so that His praise in the lives of others increases. Spiritual discipline, then, is concerned with all these things, with striving for the greatest glory of God and the greatest enjoyment of Him that is possible in a human life. Understanding this protects us from engaging in spiritual disciplines simply as a reaction against the sin in our lives and the world around us. Life in Christ is not about reacting against sin; it’s about responding to the revelation of God’s glory in the person and work of Jesus Christ by turning from our idols to love and serve the true and living God (I Thessalonians 1:9). Until we have learned to engage our whole person in loving and delighting in God and HIs praise, we have not repented of our sin, because at its core sin is enthroning created things, and ultimately self, against God.
But in its pursuit of the maximum glory of God and the maximum enjoyment of Him in the present moment, spiritual discipline is not preoccupied with this earthly life but is instead driven by the anticipation of eternity with God in Christ (cf. Philippians 3:20, I Peter 1:13, Hebrews 9:28). It is the consecration of an engaged bride yearning for her groom, who feels that she is not at home in her own life as long as she is not married to her beloved, and who lives in anticipation of that day. The more we increase in glorifying God and enjoying Him in this life, the more we will long for the day when our glorifying of Him and our enjoyment of Him is perfected. When Jesus appears from Heaven to claim His bride and bring us into perfect eternal union with Him in the new creation, then and only then will the glory of God be perfected in us, for we will be perfect in the image of God even as our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect, and we will see Him as He is, and there will be no clouds in our vision of Him to restrain us from complete abandonment to His praise. We enjoy God as we experience His goodness to us and the glory of who He is through the intimate fellowship that is made possible in this age by the gift of the Holy Spirit. But there will come a day when the sweetness of our union and fellowship with Jesus in this life will be eclipsed by the all-satisfying ecstasy of being in His presence face-to-face, in a same way that a young bride and groom forget the restless and constrained intimacy of their engagement in the consummate intimacy of their marriage. For marriage is in the world to prophesy to us about just this thing–the love of God for His people and their love for Him–and when that love is perfected, the shadow will pass away before the surpassing glory of what it was given to the world to be a picture of.
Even so come, our precious Lord Jesus.
~Andrew
Andrew Micah 