With Christ in the School of Prayer: excerpt 174

 This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I do this, not because I'm a powerful prayer warrior, but because I'm not. Murray was. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24.

To those who thus abide, the promise comes as their rightful heritage: Ask whatsoever ye will. It cannot be otherwise. Christ has got full possession of them. Christ dwells in their love, their will, their life. Not only has their will been given up; Christ has entered it, and dwells and breathes in it by His Spirit. He whom the Father always hears, prays in them; they pray in Him: what they ask shall be done unto them.

Beloved fellow-believer! let us confess that it is because we do not abide in Christ as He would have us, that the Church is so impotent in presence of the infidelity and worldliness and heathendom, in the midst of which the Lord is able to make her more than conqueror. Let us believe that He means what He promises, and accept the condemnation the confession implies.

But let us not be discouraged. The abiding of the branch in the Vine is a life of neverceasing growth.  The abiding, as the Master meant it, is within our reach, for He lives to give it us. Let us but be ready to count all things loss, and to say, ‘Not as though I had already attained; I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’ Let us not be so much occupied with the abiding, as with Him to whom the abiding links us, and His fulness. Let it be Him, the whole Christ, in His obedience and humiliation, in His exaltation and power, in whom our soul moves and acts; He Himself will fulfil His promise in us.

And then as we abide, and grow evermore into the full abiding, let us exercise our right, the will to enter into all God’s will. Obeying what that will commands, let us claim what it promises. Let us yield to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to show each of us, according to his growth and measure, what the will of God is which we may claim in prayer. And let us rest content with nothing less than the personal experience of what Jesus gave when He said, ‘If ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you.’

With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, excerpt 137

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here.  His book is based on Mark 11:22-24. The previous post in this series is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray's book is based on Mark 11:22-24.

He that seeks God’s glory will see it in the answer to his prayer, and he alone.

And how, we ask again, shall we attain to it? Let us begin with confession. How little has the glory of God been an all-absorbing passion; how little our lives and our prayers have been full of it. How little have we lived in the likeness of the Son, and in sympathy with Him—for God and His glory alone. Let us take time, until the Holy Spirit discover it to us, and we see how wanting we have been in this. True knowledge and confession of sin are the sure path to deliverance.
And then let us look to Jesus. In Him we can see by what death we can glorify God. In death He glorified Him; through death He was glorified with Him. It is by dying, being dead to self and living to God, that we can glorify Him. And this—this death to self, this life to the glory of God—is what Jesus gives and lives in each one who can trust Him for it.
Let nothing less than these—the desire, the decision to live only for the glory of the Father, even as Christ did; the acceptance of Him with His life and strength working it in us; the joyful assurance that we can live to the glory of God, because Christ lives in us;—let this be the spirit of our daily life. Jesus stands surety for our living thus; the Holy Spirit is given, and waiting to make it our experience, if we will only trust and let Him; O let us not hold back through unbelief, but confidently take as our watchword—All to the glory of God! The Father accepts the will, the sacrifice is well-pleasing; the Holy Spirit will seal us within with the consciousness, we are living for God and His glory.

The Most Important Spiritual Disciplines

Spiritual Disciplines are “habits, practices, and experiences that are designed to develop, grow, and strengthen” a believer's spiritual life. They are things that Christians can, and are, expected to do, for their own benefit, as opposed to Spiritual Gifts, which are meant for the uplifting of a group of believers. Although they are for the individual, doing these will make us more like Christ, and lead us to benefit others in many ways. Two Bible passages which are direct commands to engage in self-initiated exercise toward spiritual growth are 1 Timothy 4:7b (Exercise yourself toward godliness ...) and Philippians 2:12b (work out your own salvation with fear and trembling...).

There is no widely agreed-upon list of Spiritual  Disciplines. The chart below uses four sources which do give lists, and compares them. My own list is derived from these, and is below.

Spiritual Disciplines chart (I attempted to line up the same items across the chart, but Blogger and/or your browser may not line them up properly. Sorry.)

Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline Fasting Meditation Prayer Service Simplicity Solitude Study Submission

Dallas Willard, the Spirit of the Disciplines Celebration§ Chastity* Confession§ Fasting* Fellowship§ Frugality* Prayer§ Sacrifice* Secrecy* Service§ Silence* Solitude* Study § Submission§ Worship §

Brett & Kate McKay “What are Spiritual Disciplines?” Celebration Chastity Confession Contemplation Evangelism Fasting Fellowship Gratitude Journaling Meditation Prayer Self-Examination Silence Simplicity Solitude Stewardship Study Submission/Obedience

Adele Ahlberg, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook Confession Compassion Detachment Discernment Fasting Intercession Lord’s Supper Prayer (at fixed time(s)) Service Stewardship Study Witness Worship

*Willard calls these “Disciplines of Abstinence” and §these “Disciplines of Engagement.”

These Disciplines are mentioned in all four sources: Fasting, Prayer, and Study.

These are mentioned in three of these sources: Confession, Service, Solitude, Submission. It would seem, then, that at least these seven Disciplines are important, even essential, for the proper Christian life.
I’m guessing that “Solitude” includes Meditation, and would add that Discipline to the “most important” list. Individual Worship can be combined with Meditation and Solitude. Celebration is one form of Worship. 

There are other things that a Christian normally should do, including Celebration, Evangelism/Witnessing and group Worship, which includes the Lord’s Supper, but these don’t strike me as Disciplines. Neither does Discernment.

Journaling can be part of Study and Meditation. Contemplation and Self-Examination are part of Meditation. Celibacy, Detachment and Secrecy are aspects of Solitude. Stewardship is an aspect of Service. Stewardship often leads to Frugality and Simplicity.

Gratitude may not be a Discipline, in the minds of all. Perhaps they see it as part of Meditation. Celebration is  part of Gratitude, too. However, it seems to me, based on the Bible’s emphasis on it, that Gratitude is so important, and should be engaged in almost continuously, that I’m going to add it to my list of the most important Disciplines.

Adoration – praising God for who and what He is – as opposed to Gratitude, thanking God for specific things He has done, is not on any of the lists, but, again, it strikes me as so important that it is included in the list below. There are important Biblical prayers that include Adoration, such as Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (“Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you …”), the prayer of the Disciples in Acts 4 (“O Lord, you are God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea …”) part of Christ’s High Priestly prayer in John (“17:5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed….”), Psalm 8:1 (“Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who has set your glory above the heavens!”), Psalm 104 (1 Bless Yahweh, my soul. Yahweh, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty.”). Other passages with adoration are Hebrews 1 (3a “His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power …”), the song of the angels at the birth of Christ (Luke 2:14a “Glory to God in the highest …”) and John’s description of the Holy City (Revelation 21:22 “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple. 21:23 The city has no need for the sun, neither of the moon, to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.”)

None of the sources list “Bible Reading” as a Discipline. Bible Reading is not necessarily the same thing as Bible Study, however, and I would add that to the list of most important Disciplines, which is meant to include all of those mentioned in the table above, in some way:

Adoration, Bible Reading, Bible Study, Confession, Fasting, Gratitude, Meditation, Prayer, Service, Solitude, Submission.

Thanks for reading! Practice the Spiritual Disciplines.