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What activities did Jesus practice? Such things as solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, intense study and meditation upon God’s Word and God’s ways, and service to others.
However, neither individually nor collectively do any of these ways reliably produce large numbers of people who really are like Christ and his closest followers throughout history. That is statistically verifiable fact.
found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried.” So said that insightful and clever Christian, G. K. Chesterton.
“cost of discipleship”
the cost of non-discipleship
we’re in a period of grace—we are saved by grace, not by anything we do—so obedience to Christ is actually not necessary. And it is so hard, anyway; it cannot be expected of us, much less enjoyed by us.
the proper diet and rest and the exercises for specific muscles are not a part of the game itself, but without them the athlete certainly would not perform outstandingly.
What we find here is true of any human endeavor capable of giving significance to our lives.
Instead of an easy yoke, all we’ll experience is frustration.
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”3
How can we be like him not as a pose or by a constant and grinding effort, but with the ease and power he had—flowing from the inner depths, acting with quiet force from the innermost mind and soul of the Christ who has become a real part of us?
That intent for the church is twofold: the effective proclamation of the Christian gospel to all humanity, making “disciples” from every nation or ethnic group, and the development of those disciples’ character into the character of Christ himself “teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you”
So we can only describe the phrase, “teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” as the Great Omission from the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19–20.
it has lost sight of the type of life in which such growth would be a realistic and predictable possibility.
When Richard Foster published his Celebration of Discipline in 1978, he reported that his research could not turn up a single book published on the subject of fasting
from 1861 to 1954.
If the steady, longtime faithful devotees to our ministries are not transformed in the substance of their lives to the full range of Christlikeness, they are being
failed by what we are teaching them.
was intermittently teaching in several Protestant churches of various denominations. All of them had in common a firmly entrenched tradition of scorn for “ascetic” practices such as solitude, silence, and fasting.
spiritual growth and vitality stem from what we actually do with our lives, from the habits we form, and from the character that results.
transformed saving faith into mere mental assent to correct doctrine.
“revival”—more or less carefully orchestrated evangelistic efforts still called by the old name. As a rule, these new efforts leave not only the communities but also the individuals who make decisions for Christ substantially unchanged from what they were before.
But at that point in our national history there emerged a widespread awareness that this brand of religion, whether of the Right or the Left and regardless of the power in its past, could not be counted on regularly to produce the kind of people we knew in our hearts it should produce. It was not producing the kind of people that we knew life demanded and that we ourselves longed to be.
To undertake the disciplines was to take our activities—our lives—seriously and to suppose that the following of Christ was at least as big a challenge as playing the violin or jogging.
show how the practice of the disciplines is to be integrated with the great truth recovered with Protestantism—that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works or merit.
Centuries ago, disciplines such as fasting, service, and giving were confused with meritorious works, as well as with a useless and destructive “penance.” So what resulted was a general failure to understand or accept the wonderful, positive functions of those disciplines as part of the course of the human personality’s full redemption. We’ve all heard of “cheap grace.” But “cheap grace” as a concept didn’t just come merely from our wanting to have God’s mercy and bounty at bargain basement prices. I believe that the misunderstanding of the spiritual disciplines’ place in life has been
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a theology of the disciplines
a thoughtless theology guides our lives with just as much force as a thoughtful and informed one.
a life more pervasively and deeply characterized by solitude, fasting, prayer, and service.
One of our most important tasks here will be to make clear how and why the use of our body for positive spiritual ends is a large part of our share in the process of redemption.
