The Skinny on Fasting

A funny video on how we often misunderstand the practice of fasting.

Spiritual Disciplines Series

We are currently in a series on Spiritual Disciplines. After an interesting discussion in my accountability group and in our prayer gathering yesterday, God used this quote in my devotional reading today to speak to my heart. I thought I would share it with you:

"True holiness is a witness that cannot be ignored. Real sainthood is a phenomenon to which even the worldling pays tribute. The power of a life, where Christ is exalted, would arrest and subdue those who are bored to tears by our thin version of Christianity and wholly uninterested in mere churchmanship.

We have talked much of salvation by faith, but there has been little realization that all real faith involves discipline. Faith is not a blithe 'turning it all over to Jesus.' Faith is such confidence in Jesus that it takes seriously His summons, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.'

We have loudly proclaimed our dependence upon the grace of God, never guessing that the grace of God is given only to those who practice the grace of self-mastery. 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for God is at work in you both to will and to work His good pleasure.' People working out, God working in - that is the New Testament synthesis.

Humans, working out their salvation alone, are a pathetic spectacle - hopelessly defeated moralists trying to elevate themselves by their own bootstraps.

God, seeking to work in a person who offers no disciplined cooperation, is a heartbreaking spectacle - a defeated Savior trying to free, from sins and earthiness, a person who will not lift his or her face out of the dust, or shake off the shackles of the egocentric self.

Real discipline is not vain effort to save one's self. It is an intelligent application to the self of those psychological principles which enable the self to enter into life-giving fellowship with God who is our salvation.

In all Christian literature there is no writer who had a clearer conviction concerning the salvation provided only in Christ than has Paul. His self-despair ended in that marvelous, ageless insight, 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord.' 'I know whom I have believed,' he cried in an ecstasy of confident gladness, 'and am persuaded that he is able.' Paul was a salvationist, in the noblest sense.

But Paul was also a disciplinarian. 'I beat my body to keep it in subjection.' 'They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.' 'So fight I, not as one who beateth the air.' 'Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.' 'Laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.' 'No man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.' These are not the words of a man who scorned discipline!

One might multiply such statements as these from Paul - all of them the almost spontaneous evidence of the disciplines which he, trusting in Christ, imposed upon himself in his eager effort to give Christ that co-operation without which not even Christ can save a soul and make a saint.

We must recover for ourselves the significance and the necessity of the spiritual disciplines. Without them we shall continue to be impotent witnesses for Christ. Without them Christ will be impotent in His efforts to use us to save our society from disintegration and death."

~ From Discipline and Discovery by Albert Edward Day

We are in training! May we discover the significance of these spiritual practices so that we might put our lives in the flow of God's presence.

Practicing Presence

Here are some simple words of encouragement as we learn to practice the Presence together!

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." ~ John 17:20-21

“Think of the number of people who have been encouraged in this way by the simple writings and profound life of Brother Lawrence. How vastly enriched we are that he was finally persuaded, almost against his will, to write down how he had learned The Practice of the Presence of God. His famous words still throb with life and joy. ‘The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.’ Every thought, every decision, every action stemmed from the divine Root. A simple kitchen monk, who meekly referred to himself as the ‘lord of all pots and pans,’fount it to be possible. We can too!

But we fool ourselves if we think that such a sacramental way of living is automatic. This kind of living communion does not just fall on our heads. We must desire it and seek it out. Like the deer that pants for the flowing stream, so we thirst for the living Spring. We must order our lives in particular ways. We must take up a consciously chosen course of action that will draw us more deeply into perpetual communion with the Father.

I have discovered one delightful means to this end to be prayer experiments that open us to God’s presence every waking moment. The idea is extraordinarily simple. Seek to discover as many ways as possible to keep God constantly in mind. ‘There is nothing new in that,’ you may say. ‘That practice is very ancient and very orthodox.’ Exactly! This desire to practice the presence of God is the secret of all the saints.” ~ From Freedom of Simplicity by Richard J. Foster

There’s not a plant or flower below, But makes thy glories known;
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, By order from thy throne,
While all that borrows life from thee is ever in thy care,
And everywhere that man can be, Thou, God, art present there.
~ Isaac Watts