Rhythms in the Christian Life

Jon Nitta April 4, 2018

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4:7, "…but train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." There is a rigorous training in the Christian life, but it's not the kind of training that focuses primarily on your will to accomplish something. For instance, one should not look at the fruit of the Spirit, or any command in the Bible to be virtuous and approach it as if they could make themselves be "that".

John Ortberg takes his cue from Dallas Willard when he writes in The Life You've Always Wanted, "The Christian gospel insists that transformation of the human personality really is possible. Never easy. Rarely quick. But possible.” There is a re-training that all of us who follow Christ are invited to enter into. It's not forced. Nor does transformation happen magically. Rather, it's something that we choose to enter into because we sense it's actually the way to become the kind of person who looks more like Christ. Yet, as Ortberg points out, this training is neither easy nor quick.

The tools of this training are the spiritual disciplines, those practices that we undertake in our life to bring us closer to God so that he can transform us. As we are discipled in God’s Word, we are encouraged to undertake things like daily reading of that Word, prayer, fellowship/togetherness, Sunday worship/Sabbath-keeping, and talking to others about Christ (evangelism). There are practices that are more often neglected but which are equally familiar, things like giving, hospitality, and service. Another group of spiritual disciplines, which are more rigorous and not meant to be undertaken frequently are the regimens. You can read more on those here.

A Christian cannot have any expectation of becoming more spiritually mature if spiritual practices are not part of their life. As D. A. Carson wrote, "People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord." However, the spiritual disciplines, the training tools, do not themselves change us. Rather they open us up to God's grace and power and reveal more of Jesus' beauty so the Holy Spirit can enlarge our hearts and bring about character transformation. This training is more about using our will to offer or present ourselves to God: Here I am. Change me. The goal is not to try to fix or change ourselves; that is the role of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:7). The goal is putting ourselves in the stream of God's grace as we open our hearts to him.

In this way, spiritual disciplines are about getting us to the end of ourselves in order that we might be filled through and through with God's Spirit. In bringing these practices into our lives, we intentionally bring ourselves to the end of ourselves - to the end of our resources, our need for control, or desire to manipulate. Having placed ourselves in the stream of God's grace, the Holy Spirit can confront our poor beliefs, our sometimes misleading emotions, and our sin, and then he can empower us to live out our lives the way God intends. This is how character changes over time. Dallas Willard was fond of saying, "God's address is at the end of your rope" meaning God often does his best work in you when you are at the end of yourself. Every single spiritual discipline is intended to put you in that place.

Below are some informative and helpful resources to get you started. I won’t go into great detail here about the spiritual disciplines that are meant to be regular rhythms in our life since they are widely written about and that information is easily accessible. But here is one example of what it means to use one of these practices to get to the end of ourselves: When we read the Bible, it's not really for more information. In John 6, Jesus issued some very divisive words about who He was and many turned away and ceased to follow Him. When Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave, Peter said, "Lord, where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life." This is the heart of a disciple, one who approaches the Bible every day with the heart attitude of Lord, where else will I go? You alone have words that drip with a quality of life that I desperately want.