Spiritual Disciplines Course.

Introduction to the Disciplines.

I acknowledge that I need God moment to moment in my life.
I acknowledge that it is through His Grace that I receive the strength I need to face up to all that life brings my way.
I yearn for a deep, intimate relationship with God.
I long to serve Him as best as I can.
I acknowledge that God has created me with a potential, and I wish to fulfil that potential, with His help.
I acknowledge that the only way I can do this, is to strengthen my relationship with Him.
I realise that this can only come about through a commitment to God.
I understand that as my relationship with God deepens, the effects will ripple out to those I come in contact with daily; my friends, my family, my colleagues, my acquaintances, and those who will be able to see God revealed through my life.
It is my purpose to reveal God to those around me.
For this reason, because of God's Love for me, and my Love for Him, I commit myself to a journey of discipline in order to build an intimate relationship with God.

I commit myself to participating as fully as I am able in this course:

To spending time with God during the week.
To practice that which I learn in a prayerful relationship with God.
To allowing God to stretch me a little as I trust Him and move out of my "comfort zone".

Remember:

God's Grace is unearned and unearnable, we are not trying to win God's love. We are simply putting ourselves in a place where God can change us (so that we can fulfil the potential God has created in us).
The Disciplines are a narrow ledge, and we are in danger of falling off either side:

Sometimes we feel guilty about accepting God's Grace and feel we need to do something to earn it or, we just don't do anything at all. Both of these are dangerous.

The difficulties of the disciplines are:

Practical

how

Philosophical

The danger of the Disciplines are:

The temptation to turn the Disciplines into Law.
The failure to grasp the social implications of the Disciplines.
To view the Disciplines as virtuous in themselves.
To centre on the Disciplines rather than on Christ.
The tendency to isolate and elevate one Discipline to the exclusion or neglect of the others.
To think that the Disciplines exhaust the means of God's Grace.
The temptation to study the Disciplines without experiencing them.

Exercises:

During your "intimate" (special) times with God you may want to use the following Bible readings as your focus (or you can continue using any material you may already be using). Use them in any order you want, and spend as long as you need on each one (even if you spend the whole week on one verse!):

Reading
Psalm 42
Psalm 51
Romans 7: 13-25
Philippians 3: 1-6
Ephesians 6: 10-20

Focus
The longing to go deeper.
The slavery to ingrained habits.
The slavery to ingrained habits.
The bankruptcy of outward righteousness.
The victory of Spiritual Discipline.

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