We kicked off Sunday night youth group this past Sunday. It was a cool time of laughing, eating, being together, worshipping Jesus, and beginning the first discussion in a series on Spiritual Disciplines.
Most people, including myself, do not like the word “discipline”. It often comes across as a negative term. However, the opposite is actually true. Disciplines are simply the practices that train a person for a purpose (my definition). If you are football player, you will spend time in the gym, on the field, and around your teammates. When I discipline my daughter, I am not doing it to be mean, but rather to help her learn what is safe and polite behavior. In the same way, Spiritual Disciplines are intentionally developed habits that refocus us on Jesus, connect us with the Holy Spirit, and remind us of the Father’s mission in this world. Jesus refers to these habits as “abiding” in John 15:5 when He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
If you have been a Christian for 6 months or more you have experienced the “spiritual high” that often occurs after we are involved in an event with a great a speaker, or service project helping others, or even a great time of worship. What happens with these “spiritual highs” (or as Trevor likes to call it, “Jesus weed”), is that we are stoked to live for Jesus and His kingdom for about a week… then real life hits and we fall right back into our normal routine. People who are experiencing these times are often referred to as being “on fire for God”. The goal of spiritual disciplines is to help you and I sustain that fire for Jesus and His kingdom.
Over the next few months we will exploring eleven spiritual disciplines. My prayer is not that these will become new categories on your check list of to do’s, but rather they will become natural pieces of your everyday life. My prayer is that you will grow in Jesus like never before and minister to those around you in fruitful ways.
See ya Sunday.