So, I am at this conference in Florida that will go unnamed (the wifi at this place blocked my blog, I must have sworn in it somewhere) and the first speaker was fine, but said the same thing that every speaker I have ever heard talk about church growth has said, "The key to being an effective minister is personal quiet times." I am going to go ahead and take the liberty to include all spiritual "disciplines" into this statement...and for the record, this particular speaker set the bar at a 1 hour daily quiet time.
The focus of this particular talk was that we, as ministers, need to be at the feet of the master and in the word in order to have the kernels of wisdom needed to minister effectively. That we can gain lifetimes of wisdom by learning from the testimony of the scriptures.
Seems like a fine talk, one that most of us in Christian circles have probably heard numerous times...here is my issue: All we need to minister effectively is the Spirit working within us and through us at the behest of the Father on account of Christ's death on the cross and subsequent resurrection. Reading the Bible, Prayer, Fasting, etc. are all good things that are necessary to the life of the believer, but they are not things we do in order to gain Christ. And if we are talking about ministering effectively, what else do we need to minister well? If there is anything we need to do beyond responding to the call of the cross in order to be used by God, then we are screwed.
The Spiritual "disciplines" are not disciplines at all, they are not something we train ourselves to do becuase we do not get anything from doing them. Let me say that again, we do not get anything from doing the spiritual disciplines . We sit at the feet of the Lord in prayer, fasting, and we read his word purely for his sake, not ours. We do it in response to the incredible, generous, and totally undeserved love that he has first shown us. It is only on account of his first loving us that we can ever hope to come to him in worship. Any benefit we perceive getting out of these actions are benefits that we have already freely received on account of God's work, not ours, regardless of whether or not we read the Bible, pray, or fast.
November 9-15
2 days ago
2 comments:
I read with interest your comment that we do not get anything out of the spiritual disciplines. May I refer you to John 1, the last several verses where Jesus and Nathanael are introduced? When Jesus sees him for the first time, Jesus tells the others this man is genuine (no guile, deceit). That remarkable description of a man seems to revolve around the mention of a fig tree. All that I can gather from this conversation is that apparently Nathanael had regularly found himself under this fig tree and he must have been focusing on God becuase at the mention of it he resonds that jesus is the Son of God.To say the very least the time there allowed God to gain control of Nathanael's life and change him so that he became one who was genuine. Bringing your life under the control of the Holy Spirit is defenitley a benefit and I personally have seen few if any people do so without the pathway of disciplines.
Amen and Amen, Kris. A clear and helpful reflection re. the so-called 'disciplines.'
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