Spiritual Disciplines & their Counterbalance
Let's join in to the revival of spiritual disciplines, and at the same time, embrace their counterbalance.
I’m celebrating the new move of God that we are seeing explode in North America and beyond, as spiritual disciplines are being rediscovered and practiced again! Praise the Lord! There’s a widespread pursuit of a deeper spirituality afoot, a hunger for a life that’s more Christlike, as opposed to one that is just Christian in name only. It’s a welcome shift away from a shallow, cultural Christianity or using Christianity as a life hack-- to authentic discipleship. Praise God.
CHRISTLIKENESS
Christlikeness, becoming more like Jesus, or as John Mark Comer puts it, being an “apprentice of Jesus”, is the goal that the Holy Spirit is committed to achieve in all of our lives. He’s working to transform us into Christlike ones, using our circumstances, the Word, the Church, and His direct active “helping” of us to grow. We find that wonderful spiritual growth and transformation happen as He leads us into spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, biblical reading and meditation, sabbath, sharing our faith, generosity, fasting, and quiet solitude. This is His work of love because it’s for our good that we become more Christlike. What follows with Christlikeness is we are more united to Christ, more full of Him, and more fully alive. The nearness of God is my good (Ps 73:28). In His presence there is fullness of joy, regardless of our life circumstances (Ps 16:11).
Spiritual disciplines are being rediscovered, and hundreds of thousands are finding a new depth and vibrancy to their faith as they are practiced. People are getting serious about their faith. This is such an important development that prepares us to not just be disciples but to be ones who are confidently able to make disciples, to train others in how to follow Jesus and become like Him. As I reported in last month’s article on the Quiet Revival, here in Canada, we are potentially poised for an influx of many turning to Christ and particularly the younger generation. So knowing how to help shape them into disciples is essential.
POSSIBLE ERRORS
Yet there is more to being a disciple than just excelling in spiritual disciplines and conforming your life to following Jesus through these vital practices. They are essential but without the necessary counterbalance, spiritual disciplines can lead to two errors:
BELIEVING OUR EFFORTS ARE THE SOURCE OF OUR GROWTH. We start believing that becoming more like Jesus and having a deeper walk with Him hinges solely on our investment, our works if you like. We think it’s our investment in fasting, bible meditation, giving, prayer and more that alone determines our spiritual maturity. The tricky thing is that this is almost true. Yes, how much we pursue God matters. Yes, investing in our relationship with Him bears fruit. However, transformation does not and cannot rest entirely on our shoulders. It is a work of grace.
In the same way that if we shift our faith from trusting in Jesus and the benefits of His work on the cross save us—to trusting in our own works, our own earning of our salvation— we fall into error. And then, if we expect our transformation to be by works rather than trusting in Christ, we again fall into deception. We can’t earn our salvation; we can’t earn our sanctification even though we participate in it. If we fall into believing that it all depends on us, this belief leads to striving, and either shame (as we fall short) or spiritual pride (as we compare our successes to others).BECOMING THE SUPER-SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUAL The second error is that we can start thinking of ourselves as more individualistic than we were meant to be because these spiritual disciplines are primarily ones that we personally and even privately, engage in. We forget that we are spiritually connected to the rest of the body of Christ, particularly our home church, and we are all moving together towards being transformed into Christlikeness. Jesus is not looking for a group of elite, isolated saints, who are aloof from the rest of the church. (This is where the teaching that we could opt to be “Friends of the Bridegroom” went off.) No, we are His Bride, and He is investing in His Bride, His Temple, His Body—all corporate expressions that He is building, nurturing, and purifying. Our spiritual walk and investment in these disciplines doesn’t just achieve in us a deeper walk with Jesus, but it makes the whole body more like Him as His life flows in us and through us.
It's not just our influence, but it’s the mystical reality that we are one in Him. Like the members of our body are one- if I get a sinus infection it doesn’t just impact my sinuses, my whole body feels the fatigue from the sickness.
Yet, we can forget this corporate reality that we are a part of and start to become spiritually proud of our own personal rule of life, looking down on others who struggle to walk out what we have perhaps, excelled in.
So two major areas of potential error, which are easily remedied with Jesus’s provision of a counterbalance.
THAT COUNTERBALANCE IS THE EUCHARIST
Receiving the Eucharist (communion) weekly is something that is not an act of your discipline. You can’t excel in it; you don’t achieve it through any works.
You bring nothing to the table, in the same way that you bring nothing to the cross. It’s a place of grace and grace is received, by faith, not works – lest any man should boast.
You approach the table having freshly repented from all known sin and confessed that you are not worthy to eat from His table, nor, not even to gather up the crumbs under His table– no matter how much you have been faithful and diligent in spiritual disciplines. You haven’t been able to make yourself worthy. So you come in humility, yet still audaciously confident in His mercy. In this posture, you receive bread and wine.
The bread of heaven, the cup of salvation.
Eucharist is a sacrament, and a sacrament is a means of grace— so needed to reorient our works and protect us from the insidiousness of religious striving leading to shame or spiritual pride. We bring nothing to the cross and that is how we come to the table.
COMMUNION IS COMMUNAL
In addition, you come to the table with your community. Communion is never solitary, it’s never a Jesus-and-me event— that would defeat much of the purpose. It’s the church as one, having made peace with God and each other (if that was necessary), and now eating a spiritual feast together to celebrate our union IN CHRIST and union WITH CHRIST
“We break this bread – to share in the body of Christ
For we being many are one body— for we all share in one bread”
Perhaps in your context, Eucharist (communion) is celebrated only once a month or quarterly, and it may be more casual than in my Anglican world. Even if this is the case, you can still enter into the reverence and humility of receiving this holy sacrament in a way that your heart is deeply touched and you allow the Holy Spirit to reorient you, putting everything in right perspective. Here you can vividly see all your love-fueled works in pursuit of God as a teeny speck in comparison to his love-fueled work in pursuit of you. He’s done the cosmic, heavy lifting and we are transformed as we receive the grace of union with Him that communion provides for us.
It's not an equal partnership, our works and His works. No, it’s all His work, but we are privileged to participate in the feast by responding to His grace, His wooing, His enabling. The Eucharist keeps this truth before us and holds our hearts in this important posture of humility and faith. Receiving it weekly keeps it fresh and vibrant.
So let’s lean into the revival of spiritual disciplines, learning how to excel in these and allow our lives to be shaped by them. But let’s also embrace the Eucharist more than ever as the place where all our works are laid down and we joyfully receive grace.
Whoo! Nailed it.