The Two Tracks of the Spiritual Disciplines

Talk to anyone who is active in making disciples, and you will soon find yourself having a conversation about the spiritual disciplines, those holy habits that cultivate the soil of our hearts so that God’s Spirit can create life-transforming fruit.

Our progress in the holy habits runs along two tracks. One without the other, and we get nowhere.

The first track is the clarity of my motivation.
 
The spiritual disciplines must never be thought of as an end in themselves. If I am engaged in the disciplines for the wrong reasons – to impress my Christian friends, to satisfy the expectations of my own checklist spirituality, or (worse) to earn God’s favor – I have created my own idol, my own impotent means of achieving my own goals.

Jesus said that if I adopt that self-focused mindset about the disciplines, I might get what I hope for – impressing my friends or achieving my goals – but God has no interest in that sort of discipline (Matthew 6:1-6). All my activity is bent in on myself and serves only my interests, not God’s.

The spiritual disciplines must always be understood as a means to a greater end. I must engage in the spiritual disciplines as the necessary means to the one worthwhile end: knowing God. Because I love God and want to know Him, I will persevere in cultivating these habits, even though I know it will be difficult and no one will notice.

But I add this second track because it is distressingly easy to turn a select set of the spiritual disciplines – the ones that I can practice in solitude – into a kind of sanctified navel-gazing: dedicating myself to the disciplines and forgetting God’s heart for other people.

So what’s the second track?

The second track is cultivating an outward focus on people around me: my neighbors and co-workers who need Jesus; anyone, in fact, who needs my help.

If I really am getting to know God better, His Spirit will prompt me to look for people around me who need what I have to offer: my assistance, my prayers, my counsel, the Good News about Jesus.

The Pharisees are Exhibit A here. They excelled in the first track – they were highly motivated and disciplined – but they were so self-focused that they couldn’t see how cruel they were (Matt 23:23), and they didn’t recognize God Himself when He walked among them (Matt 23:37-39).

Jesus had to explain this second track to the Pharisees. After He identified “love your neighbor as yourself” as the second greatest commandment, one of His hearers wanted to explore the limits of that command “because he wanted to justify himself” (Luke 10:25-37). So he asked Jesus a clarifying question: “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answered with a story, the story of the good Samaritan.

Point of the story and Jesus’ answer to the question:

The most zealous and disciplined love for God is meaningless, even toxic, if I don’t take care of my neighbor with the same care and enthusiasm with which I take care of myself.

So as essential as it is, the first track of the spiritual disciplines (an intense love for God) takes me nowhere if I neglect the second track, active love for the people around me.

Who are the people in your sphere of influence – your co-workers, your neighbors?

Begin by committing yourself to a three-fold prayer for those near you:

1. Ask God to give you a deeper love for them.
2. Begin praying for them by name, persistently.
3. Ask God how you can open your heart and life for them to see what Jesus means to you. 

It is our prayer that our fellowship would continue to grow not only in our love for God’s Word but also in our love for the people around us – our neighbors and our community.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship