Duh!
I've been reading "The Life You've Always Wanted" by John Ortberg at the recommendation of some good friends here. I have to admit that I am now working through a chapter on Spiritual Disciplines...pretty "coinkydinky" considering that I'm sorta preaching about that right now at Cornerstone!!! Isn't God cool? Anywho, I'm having one of those embarrassing "duh!" moments. You know, like when you're 41 years old and you should have figured it out by now but you didn't and it just hit you and you're excited but feel stupid at the same time so much so that you lapse into runon sentences? A few years ago, I must have been in my 30's then, I had them same experience with LMNOP. I always thought it was a single letter in the alphabet...
Anywho, the point is, spiritual disciplines are tools for training...training to be more like Jesus. They are not things that are to gain extra points with God. They are not the measure of holiness. They are not the end in itself. They are the TRAINING TOOLS! Now I get it! So my prayer life, devotional reading, personal worship, fasting, Christian service...they are tools to use in my training.
Now you know that nearly every day I go to the gym. I don't go there because I am strong. I go there to get strong. And it is fun to train to be strong. One of these days I'll be benching my own weight. But so it is in my walk with the Lord. Every day is another opportunity to get just a little stronger. OK! This helps! Thank you Jesus!
2 comments:
This is a quote from Seinfeld's stand up at the beginning of one of his shows. I just happened to catch it the other day and I loved it. It fits right in with asking the question... Why do we need to practice spiritual disciplines? Is it just to go back to church the next Sunday or is there more to this whole thing?
"To me, going to the health club, you see all these people and they're working out, and they're training and they're getting in shape but the strange thing is nobody is really getting in shape for anything. The only reason that you're getting in shape is that so you can get through the workout. So we're working out, so that we'll be in shape, for when we have to do our exercise. This is the whole thing."
-Seinfeld from his opening monologue from the episode entitled the "The Boyfriend" (I found the quote at the following site: http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheBoyfriend1.htm)
I say briefly: Best! Useful information. Good job guys.
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