Spiritual Disciplines

Every Christian who has been one for more than a few months knows the gap. On one side is what the New Testament says a believer is: forgiven, a new creature, indwelt by the Holy Ghost, a child of God. On the other side is what most of us see in the mirror on an ordinary Tuesday: distracted, prayerless, quick to anger, slow to open the Bible, and not sure why.

The gap is not closed by a better mood or a bigger conference. Scripture closes it slowly, by ordinary means, over a lifetime. Paul put it in a single line to a young pastor: "exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

That word "exercise" is the subject of this paper. Christians have called the habits it points to "means of grace", "duties", "ordinances" and, more recently, "spiritual disciplines". The names change. The habits do not: reading and hearing the word of God, meditating on it, praying, fasting, gathering with the church on the Lord's day, taking the Lord's Supper, confessing sin, serving, giving, keeping a simple life, withdrawing to be alone with God, and speaking of Christ to others.

What this paper is

This is a study, not a programme. It argues from the King James Bible first. Where history helps us read a passage, the history is given with its source. Where believers of earlier centuries practised these habits and wrote down what they learned, their words are quoted from their own books and footnoted, so that you can check them. Where a modern study helps (and only one is used, on how long habits take to form), it is named with its year.

Seven parts follow. Part 1 asks what a discipline is and how it fits with grace. Parts 2 to 6 take the disciplines in turn: the Word; prayer; fasting; the disciplines we keep together; and the outward disciplines of service, giving, simplicity, solitude and witness. Part 7 is about keeping at it: habits, dryness, failure and pride. A shorter companion, Spiritual Disciplines: A Checklist, turns this study into daily, weekly and yearly lists you can actually use, and a separate paper, Encountering God, gives the whole of biblical meditation the room it needs.

A word about me

I was raised Roman Catholic but never really connected — I went through the motions, fell asleep in the pews, and faked being sick to skip Mass. When real life hit — a lost job, a pregnant wife, constant fights — I went looking for peace anywhere I could find it. New Age, crystals, astral projection, tarot, angel numbers. None of it held. So I swung back hard to religion, said the rosary every night, and still felt nothing. Eventually I gave up and called myself an atheist. I decided to read the Bible for one reason: to disprove it, so I'd have an excuse to stop going to church for good. It did the opposite. I came to faith in 2022, and my wife came to faith a month later. The rest of that story is at kylelauriano.com/about.

I mention it because of something this paper will say more than once: religious habits without Christ are empty. But Christ does not leave His people without habits. He gives them means, and the means are good.

A note on Scripture: every verse in this paper is quoted from the King James Bible. You can read it free in the 1611 Reader at kylelauriano.com/library. A KJV with Strong's Concordance is the best study tool most believers will ever need.

This part matters because a wrong idea of the disciplines ruins them in one of two ways. Some believers think effort is the enemy of grace, so they wait to feel like praying and seldom do. Others think effort earns grace, so they keep their habits and grow proud, anxious and hard. Scripture walks between the two.

"Exercise thyself"

The verb Paul uses in 1 Timothy 4:7 is the Greek gymnazō, the root of our word "gymnasium". Strong's Concordance (G1128) defines it as "to practise naked (in the games), i.e. train (figuratively)", and notes that the King James renders it "exercise" all four times it appears.¹ The other three uses tell us what the training is for. Mature believers are "those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:14). God's chastening "yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:11). And, as a warning, false teachers have "an heart they have exercised with covetous practices" (2 Peter 2:14). A heart can be trained toward God or away from Him. It is always being trained by something.

Paul uses the athlete again in 1 Corinthians: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible" (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). The point of the picture is not that the athlete earns the right to be on the team. He is already on it. The point is that a man who wants to finish well trains on purpose, on ordinary days, when no one is watching.

Grace and effort together

The New Testament holds two things together that we keep trying to pull apart. Salvation is entirely of grace: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). And the saved are made for work: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

Paul's clearest statement of how the two fit is in Philippians: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). We work out what God works in. We do not work for it. And Paul's own testimony has the same shape: "But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10). He laboured. Grace laboured in him. Both are true.

Grace is even called a teacher: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:11-12). The disciplines are simply the lessons that grace sets.

The means of grace

Older Christians had a phrase for this that is worth recovering: the "means of grace". The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) asks, "What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?" and answers, "his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer."² Notice the two words "outward and ordinary". The means are not secret techniques. They are plain things, open to every believer, and they work not by their own power but because Christ uses them.

The Anglican bishop J. C. Ryle, writing in 1877, put the same truth pastorally. Growth in grace, he said, is the gift of God, "But still it must always be kept in mind that God is pleased to work by means. God has ordained means as well as ends. He that would grow in grace must use the means of growth." He went on to call it "a grievous delusion" to think that those who grow have simply received some special gift that others lack, so that the rest "must be content to sit still."³

Ryle divided the means into two kinds, and this paper follows him. There are private means: "private prayer, private reading of the Scriptures, and private meditation and self-examination." And there are public means: "regular Sunday worship, the uniting with God's people in common prayer and praise, the preaching of the Word, and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper."⁴ Of the first kind he wrote, "Here are the roots of true Christianity. Wrong here, a man is wrong all the way through!"

What a discipline is not

Three cautions belong at the start, because the New Testament gives them.

A discipline is not a way to earn God's favour. The Pharisee in Jesus' parable had excellent habits: "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." He went home unjustified. The publican, who could only say "God be merciful to me a sinner", went home justified (Luke 18:12-14). If your habits make you feel better than other people, they have become the Pharisee's habits.

A discipline is not a performance. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus takes the three great habits of Jewish piety (giving, prayer and fasting) and says the same thing about each: do it "in secret", and "thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly" (Matthew 6:4). The hypocrites "have their reward" (Matthew 6:2), which is the applause they wanted. Notice that Jesus does not say if you give, pray or fast. Each time He says when: when thou doest thine alms, when thou prayest, when ye fast (Matthew 6:2, 6:5, 6:16). He assumes His disciples will keep these habits. He only cares how.

A discipline is not a man-made rule. Paul warns the Colossians against religious rules that have "a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh" (Colossians 2:23). The test of a discipline is whether Scripture commands it or models it. That is why this paper stays with the disciplines the Bible itself names, and does not add techniques from other religions or from the self-help shelf. It also means that the forms given here (how many minutes, which time of day) are wisdom, not law. Baxter said it well about keeping a set time for meditation: "If thou suit thy time to the advantage of the work, without placing any religion in the time itself, thou hast no need to fear superstition."⁵

The habits of Jesus

The best argument for the disciplines is the life of the Lord Himself. Luke tells us that at Nazareth "as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read" (Luke 4:16). He had a custom. He kept it.

He prayed early: "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" (Mark 1:35). He prayed often: "And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed" (Luke 5:16). He prayed long before great decisions: "he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12), and the next morning He chose the twelve. He fasted forty days, and when He was tempted He answered three times from the book of Deuteronomy: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). He served: "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

If the sinless Son of God kept a custom of Scripture, prayer, worship and solitude, His disciples do not outgrow it.

Every other discipline depends on this one. Prayer without Scripture drifts into talking to ourselves. Fasting without Scripture becomes a diet or a bargain. Service without Scripture becomes activism. The Word comes first because, as Paul says, "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Why the Word first

Paul's description of Scripture is also a description of what it does in a believer: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Doctrine teaches us what is true. Reproof shows us where we are wrong. Correction sets us right. Instruction trains us in what to do next. A believer who does not read his Bible has cut himself off from all four.

Jesus prayed for His disciples, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17). Peter told new believers, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2). Growth and the Word go together.

Reading

The simplest discipline is to read the Bible, all of it, regularly. Moses commanded that even the king should "write him a copy of this law in a book" and "read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God" (Deuteronomy 17:18-19). Paul told Timothy, "give attendance to reading" (1 Timothy 4:13), which in context means the public reading of Scripture in the church, but the private habit grows from the same root.

Christians have long used reading plans to make sure they read the whole Bible and not just favourite parts. The best known was drawn up by Robert Murray M'Cheyne, minister of St Peter's Church, Dundee, from 1836 until his death in 1843. It takes a reader through the whole Bible once a year, and the Psalms and New Testament twice, with separate columns for family reading and private reading.⁶ It is demanding (four chapters a day), and many believers do half of it over two years. That is wisdom, not failure.

If a whole-Bible plan is too much at first, start with one Gospel and read a chapter a day. Mark can be read in sixteen days. Then read Acts. Then a letter of Paul. Then Genesis. The goal is not speed; the goal is to keep reading.

Read the King James. It is the text this ministry stands on, it is beautiful to read aloud, and its words have shaped English Christianity for four centuries. Where it differs from modern versions, you can see every place at kylelauriano.com/library/changes. If an old word puzzles you ("prevent" in Psalm 119:148 means to go before, not to stop), a KJV with Strong's Concordance will usually settle it.

Study

Reading moves along; study stops and digs. The Bereans are the model: they "received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). They were eager, and they checked. Proverbs describes the same effort: "If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:4-5).

Study does not need a seminary. It needs a few plain questions asked of a passage, over and over:

• What does it say? Read it slowly, more than once. Notice who is speaking, to whom, and why.
• What did it mean to them? Who first heard these words, and what was happening? Read the chapter before and after.
• What does it teach about God? About Christ? About man? About sin and salvation?
• Where else does Scripture speak of this? The cross-references in a KJV, and Strong's Concordance, let Scripture interpret Scripture.
• What must I believe, do, confess or stop?

Jonathan Edwards, as a young man in 1722 and 1723, wrote seventy resolutions to govern his life. The twenty-eighth reads, "Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same."⁷ Notice that he wanted to see the growth. Study that changes nothing has missed its point.

Memory

The psalmist says, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee" (Psalm 119:11). Memorising Scripture is not a children's exercise. It is how a believer carries the Word into the places where there is no Bible open: the hospital waiting room, the sleepless night, the moment of temptation. When the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, the Lord did not reach for a scroll. He had Deuteronomy by heart.

Start with one verse a week. Write it on a card. Read it aloud morning and evening. Review the old ones on Sundays. In a year you will hold fifty verses, and they will hold you.

Meditation

Reading puts the Word in front of you; meditation takes it in. God told Joshua, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success" (Joshua 1:8). The blessed man of Psalm 1 is the one whose "delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night" (Psalm 1:2).

Biblical meditation is not emptying the mind. It is filling it with Scripture and thinking it through until it reaches the heart and the hands. The Puritan Thomas Watson put the difference between study and meditation memorably: "Study is a work of the brain, meditation of the heart; study sets the mind on work, meditation sets the heart on work."⁸ And he warned, "Reading and hearing without meditation, is like weak medicine which will not work."⁹

Meditation is large enough to need its own paper, and it has one: Encountering God, in this same series, sets out the Hebrew and Greek words, the four great texts, the Puritan method and a plain way to begin. Here it is enough to say that the Word read and not meditated on tends to run through us. George Müller, whose story comes next, used exactly that picture.

George Müller's discovery

George Müller (1805–1898) ran orphan houses in Bristol that cared for thousands of children without ever asking anyone for money; he prayed, and wrote down how the needs were met. What is less often told is how he learned to pray. In his journal for May 7, 1841, he wrote that he had come to see "that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord."¹⁰

For ten years, he explained, he had given himself to prayer first thing after dressing, and often spent a quarter of an hour, half an hour or an hour on his knees "before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort", suffering "much from wandering of mind." Then he changed the order. He began with the Bible, and meditated on it verse by verse, "not for the sake of the public ministry of the word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul." The result, he said, was "almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer."¹¹

Then he asked the question that makes this passage so useful: "Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts."¹²

Müller is not saying prayer matters less. He is saying that prayer is fed by the Word. God speaks first; we answer. A believer who finds prayer dry may need not more effort at praying but an open Bible before it.

Prayer is the breath of the Christian life. It is also, for most believers, the discipline they feel worst about. This part matters because many of us carry a vague guilt about prayer without ever having been taught what it is or how to do it.

What prayer is

The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives a definition that has served for nearly four centuries: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies."¹³ Each phrase matters. Prayer is offering, not demanding. It is our real desires, not polished words. It asks for what agrees with His will, which we learn from Scripture. It comes in the name of Christ, our only access. And it includes confession and thanks.

The access is the wonder of it. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). We come boldly, not because we are worthy, but because Christ is.

The pattern the Lord gave

When a disciple asked, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1), Jesus gave a pattern. In Matthew it reads:

"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." (Matthew 6:9-13)

"After this manner" means it is a model as well as a prayer. It begins with God (His name, His kingdom, His will) before it turns to us. It asks for ordinary needs one day at a time. It asks for forgiveness and binds it to our forgiving others. It asks for protection from temptation and evil. It ends where it began, with God's glory. A believer can pray the words themselves, and can also use each line as a heading and pray in his own words under it.

The Lord's Prayer is set just after a warning: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking" (Matthew 6:7). Prayer is not a formula that works by repetition or volume. Elijah's contest on Carmel shows the difference: the prophets of Baal "called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered" (1 Kings 18:26). Elijah prayed a short prayer to the living God, and was heard. This is why no prayer in this paper is offered as a guaranteed technique. God hears His children because He is their Father, not because they found the right words.

Kinds of prayer

Scripture shows many kinds of prayer, and a healthy prayer life has room for all of them:

• Adoration: praising God for who He is. "Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name" (Psalm 103:1).
• Confession: owning our sin. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
• Thanksgiving: remembering what He has done. "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits" (Psalm 103:2).
• Petition: asking for our own needs. "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Philippians 4:6).
• Intercession: praying for others. Paul asks for prayer "for all saints" (Ephesians 6:18), and James says, "pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16).
• Lament: honest grief and complaint brought to God, as in many of the Psalms.

When we do not know what to pray, we are not left alone: "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26).

Set times and all times

Scripture asks for both set times of prayer and a life of prayer. Daniel "kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime" (Daniel 6:10), even when it put him in the lions' den. David wrote, "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice" (Psalm 55:17), and "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up" (Psalm 5:3).

The early church kept the same rhythm. The Didache, a short manual of Christian practice usually dated to the late first or early second century, gives the Lord's Prayer and then says, "You should pray in this way three times a day."¹⁴

Alongside the set times is the command, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Thomas Watson explained it well: "The meaning is—not that we should be always praying—but that we should every day set some time apart for prayer," comparing it to the "continual" sacrifice of the old law, which was offered every morning and evening.¹⁵ Between the set times, a believer prays in short sentences through the day: thanks at a good word, a cry for help at a hard one, a name lifted up as it comes to mind.

Praying the Scriptures

The most practical help for a dry prayer life is the one Müller found: let the Bible lead. Read a psalm slowly and turn each verse into prayer. If the verse praises God, praise Him in your own words. If it confesses sin, confess yours. If it makes a promise, ask God to keep it for you and for someone you love. Donald S. Whitney, who has written widely on the disciplines, has given a whole short book to this method, Praying the Bible.¹⁶ It keeps prayer from going around the same six requests every day, and it keeps our desires shaped by God's word.

Practical counsel

• Pick a time and a place. Jesus spoke of the "closet" with the door shut (Matthew 6:6). For most people that is early morning, before the phone. For some it is a lunch break in the car. Choose one and guard it.
• Begin with Scripture. A psalm, a chapter, a few verses. Let God speak first.
• Keep a short list. Write down the people and needs you pray for. Mark answers. Over months you will see God's faithfulness on paper.
• Pray aloud or write your prayers if your mind wanders. Both slow you down.
• Pray with others. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41). Weak flesh is helped by a praying friend, a praying spouse, a praying church.
• Do not wait to feel like it. Feelings follow obedience more often than they lead it.

Fasting is the discipline most modern Christians have never practised and are a little afraid of. This part matters because Jesus expected His disciples to fast, the early church fasted, and fasting, rightly done, is one of the plainest ways a believer says with his body what he believes with his heart: that God matters more than food.

Jesus said "when"

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught: "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly" (Matthew 6:16-18).

He did not say if. And when He was asked why His disciples did not fast while John's did, He answered, "Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast" (Matthew 9:15). We live in those days. The Bridegroom has gone to the Father, and His people wait and long for His return.

Fasting in Scripture

Biblical fasting means going without food (sometimes food and water) for a set time, to seek God. Scripture gives many occasions:

• In grief and repentance. "Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments" (Joel 2:12-13). Nehemiah, hearing of Jerusalem's ruin, "sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven" (Nehemiah 1:4).
• In danger. Esther told Mordecai, "fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16).
• For guidance. Ezra "proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance" (Ezra 8:21).
• In intercession. "David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth" (2 Samuel 12:16).
• As a way of life. Anna the prophetess "departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day" (Luke 2:37).
• In the church's decisions. At Antioch, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away" (Acts 13:2-3). Later Paul and Barnabas appointed elders "and had prayed with fasting" (Acts 14:23).
• In spiritual warfare. Of a stubborn spirit Jesus said, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21). This verse stands in the 1611 and is missing from some modern versions; see kylelauriano.com/library/changes.

The fast God chooses

Fasting can be done in a way God hates. Through Isaiah He rebuked a people who fasted while they oppressed their workers and quarrelled, and then told them what He wanted: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?" (Isaiah 58:6-7). A fast that skips meals but keeps grudges has missed the point. The money and time saved by fasting can be given to someone in need.

The early church fasted

The Didache shows that fasting was a settled Christian habit within a generation or two of the apostles. It tells believers not to copy the fasting days of the "hypocrites", and says: "They fast on Mondays and Thursdays; but you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays."¹⁷ The days are not commanded in Scripture, and no one is bound to them; but the habit of a regular weekly fast was simply assumed. The same manual asks the one being baptised, and the one baptising, to fast beforehand.¹⁸

John Wesley, preaching on Matthew 6 in the eighteenth century, noted that the ancient Christians kept half-fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, taking no food until three in the afternoon.¹⁹ He also gave a caution every believer should hear: "care is to be taken, whenever we fast, to proportion the fast to our strength. For we may not offer God murder for sacrifice, or destroy our bodies to help our souls."²⁰

A testimony

Brittany Sivels told her story on The King Is Coming Show (TKIC #52, "Two Decades in Homosexuality and Lust — Then a Three-Day Fast"). Her story is of two decades in homosexuality and lust, and then, in her telling, a three-day fast. Watch it in her own words: youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0SsSLQgEg Brittany's account of what happened to her, shared as her testimony — weigh it for yourself.

Fasting is not a lever that forces God's hand, and no one should fast expecting a guaranteed result. But Scripture and the church's long experience agree that God often meets those who seek Him this way.

How to fast

• Start small. Skip one meal and spend the time in prayer and Scripture. Then try a day: from supper to supper, which is about twenty-four hours.
• Have a purpose. Write down why you are fasting: a sin you are fighting, a decision, a person you are praying for, simple hunger for God.
• When hunger comes, pray. Jesus answered hunger with Scripture: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4), quoting Deuteronomy, where Moses said God let Israel hunger "that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only" (Deuteronomy 8:3).
• Keep it quiet. Wash your face; tell your household what they need to know, and no one else.
• Drink water. Biblical examples of fasting without water were short and extraordinary.
• Break the fast gently, especially after a longer one.
• Ask your doctor first if you are pregnant or nursing, diabetic, on medication, have a history of eating disorders, or have any medical condition. Wesley's rule stands: do not "destroy our bodies to help our souls." Those who cannot fast from food can still give up something else for a season (a screen, a pleasure) and give the time to God, though Scripture's own word for fasting is about food.

Most writing on the disciplines is about the private hour. This part matters because the New Testament knows nothing of a solitary Christian. Ryle's "public means of grace" (the Lord's day, worship, preaching, the Lord's Supper) are not extras for the especially keen. They are where Christ has promised to meet His gathered people.

The first church

Luke's description of the church after Pentecost is a list of shared habits: "And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). Teaching, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer, kept "stedfastly". That is still the shape of a healthy church.

The same day had begun with Peter's command: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38). And Luke records what followed: "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41). On the desert road the eunuch asked Philip, "See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" (Acts 8:36). If you have believed and have not been baptized, read those texts, and talk to a pastor this week.

The Lord's day

From the beginning, Christians met on the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection. At Troas, "upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them" (Acts 20:7). Paul told the Corinthians to set aside their gifts "Upon the first day of the week" (1 Corinthians 16:2). John was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day" when he received the Revelation (Revelation 1:10). The Didache says, "On every Lord's Day—his special day—come together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure."²¹

The letter to the Hebrews makes gathering a matter of obedience and love: "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" (Hebrews 10:24-25). Notice the reason. We do not only go to church to receive; we go to "consider one another", to stir each other up. The believer who stays home robs others as well as himself.

Christians have differed over how strictly the day should be kept. Baxter's counsel is wise for any believer: he urged that the Lord's day in particular be a time for meditation, prayer and hearing the word.²² A day that begins in worship and leaves room for rest, family, and the Bible is a gift, not a burden.

Worship and the Word preached

"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker" (Psalm 95:6). Jesus said the Father seeks worshippers who "worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23). Worship in spirit is heart worship, not mere form. Worship in truth is worship shaped by God's word, not by our tastes.

Singing is part of it, and Paul ties it directly to the Word: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16). The songs a church sings teach as surely as its sermons, so they should be full of Scripture.

The Catechism says, "The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation." And it tells hearers how to listen: "with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives."²³ Preparing to hear (praying on Saturday night for the preacher and for your own heart) is itself a discipline. So is going home and thinking over what you heard.

The Lord's Supper

Paul handed on what he had received: "the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come" (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

Churches differ in how often they take the Supper and in how they understand it. What every believer can do is come prepared: examining himself, confessing his sin, making peace where he can, and remembering. The Supper looks back to the cross, around to the church gathered at one table, and forward to the Lord's coming. It is one of the plainest means of grace there is.

Confession

Confession is first to God: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). And Solomon: "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy" (Proverbs 28:13).

But Scripture also commands confession to one another: "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed" (James 5:16). This is not confession to a priest who absolves; it is honesty between believers, so that sin loses the power it has in the dark. Choose one or two mature believers of your own sex whom you trust. Tell them the truth. Ask them to pray, and to ask you hard questions.

Ryle urged believers to choose friends with this in mind: "Let us seek friends that will stir us up about our prayers, our Bible-reading, and our employment of time—about our souls, our salvation, and a world to come."²⁴ "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (Proverbs 27:17). The Preacher agrees (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10): "Two are better than one... For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."

Family worship

The household is the smallest congregation. Moses told Israel that God's words "shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). Family worship need not be long: a passage read aloud, a question or two, a prayer, perhaps a hymn. M'Cheyne's plan, as noted, had a column for the family as well as one for private reading. The Puritan homes that produced so many faithful believers were homes where this was ordinary.

The disciplines are not only about what happens in the closet and the church. This part matters because Scripture judges our private devotion by our public life. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (James 1:22).

Service

Jesus washed His disciples' feet and then said, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you" (John 13:14-15). Service is the discipline of doing for others what Christ did for us, especially the unseen and unglamorous tasks.

Every believer has been given something to serve with: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10). Service has an order of priority without being narrow: "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10).

Two cautions. First, service is not a substitute for sitting at Jesus' feet. Martha "was cumbered about much serving", while Mary "sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word", and the Lord said, "one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part" (Luke 10:39-42). Second, service done for applause is the hypocrite's alms. Serve where you will not be thanked.

Giving and stewardship

Giving is one of the three habits Jesus names in Matthew 6, alongside prayer and fasting. Paul gives the New Testament pattern: regular ("Upon the first day of the week"), personal ("let every one of you"), set aside ahead of time ("lay by him in store"), and proportionate ("as God hath prospered him") (1 Corinthians 16:2). And it is to be glad: "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Christians have long differed over the tithe, so here are the texts themselves. Abraham, long before the law, met Melchizedek, "And he gave him tithes of all" (Genesis 14:20). The law of Moses said, "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD" (Leviticus 27:30). Through Malachi God said, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house" (Malachi 3:10). Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that they paid "tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matthew 23:23). Read them together with Paul's words above, and let them speak. For my part, I do not teach the tithe as a law binding on Christians; I teach the willing heart Paul describes (2 Corinthians 9:7). This is my conviction; weigh it for yourself. What every one of these texts makes plain is that giving belongs to God, and that it is a test of the heart: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21). This ministry does not teach that giving buys blessing; that is prosperity teaching, and it is false. We give because we have been given everything.

Simplicity and contentment

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare" (1 Timothy 6:6-9). And Hebrews: "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).

Simplicity is the outward discipline that matches contentment within. It is not a rule about how many shirts to own. It is the habit of asking, before we buy, commit or scroll: does this help me love God and my neighbour, or does it crowd them out? It means saying no to good things to keep room for the best. It means watching the time: "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16). And it means laying aside whatever slows us down: "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:1-2). Not every weight is a sin. Some are simply heavy.

Solitude and silence

The Lord withdrew to be alone with His Father, and He invited His disciples to do the same: "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat" (Mark 6:31). After feeding the five thousand "he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone" (Matthew 14:23).

Biblical solitude is not withdrawal from people for its own sake, and biblical silence is not an empty mind. It is getting away from noise in order to hear God speak in His word and to speak to Him in prayer. "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools... let thy words be few" (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2). And David: "Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still" (Psalm 4:4). The stillness of the psalmist is full: full of the knowledge of God, the memory of His works, and the examination of one's own heart.

Baxter, recommending "some private retirement" for set meditation, reminded his readers how often Christ "himself" retired "to some mountain, or wilderness, or other solitary place," and advised withdrawing even from godly company for a while, "that thou mayst awhile enjoy the society of thy Lord."²⁵ Most of us cannot go to a mountain. We can take a walk without headphones, sit in a parked car with a Bible for twenty minutes, or rise before the house is awake. Once a season, a longer time alone (an afternoon, a day) with Scripture, a notebook and prayer can reset a whole year.

Witness

The last discipline faces outward. "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me" (Acts 1:8). And Peter: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).

Notice that Peter's command begins in the heart ("sanctify the Lord God in your hearts") and only then reaches the mouth. Witness grows out of the other disciplines. A believer who has met God in the Word this morning has something to say. Make it a habit: pray daily for two or three people by name who do not know Christ; be ready with your own story of how you came to Him; and, when the door opens, walk through it with gentleness.

Starting is easy. Every January many believers begin a Bible plan; by March many have stopped. This part matters because the Christian life is a long obedience, and the disciplines only help those who keep them.

Habits take time

There is honest research on this. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology in 2010, Phillippa Lally and her colleagues followed volunteers in the real world as they tried to build a new daily habit, and measured how automatic it felt over time. The time it took to reach the point where the behaviour felt automatic varied enormously, from 18 days to 254 days, with an average of about 66 days.²⁶

Two lessons follow for believers. First, expect the early weeks to be hard. If a morning time with God still feels like effort after three weeks, nothing has gone wrong. Second, the range is wide. Some habits come quickly and some slowly, and people differ. Do not compare yourself to anyone else. And remember that the disciplines are more than habits. A habit of reading the Bible is a good thing; but the Bible is the living word of God, and the One who meets us there is not a habit. "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword" (Hebrews 4:12).

Fix a time

The older writers said the same thing the research does, in their own language. Baxter: "Stated time is a hedge to duty, and defends it against many temptations to omissions." He was realistic about those who did not control their own hours ("many are so poor, that the necessities of their families deny them this freedom"); they should "take their vacant opportunities as they fall." But those who could set a time should.²⁷ Watson thought "the morning is the fittest time for meditation", calling it "the cream of the day."²⁸

Edwards, at the head of his seventy resolutions, wrote a prayer and a reminder. The prayer: "Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake." The reminder: "Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week."²⁹ Both are worth copying. Write down the few disciplines you mean to keep, pray over them, and read them weekly.

Start small and add slowly

Do not begin with twelve disciplines. Begin with the Word and prayer every day, and the Lord's day every week. When those are steady, add one more: a memory verse, a monthly fast, a regular act of service. The companion checklist in this series gives a thirty-day starting plan.

It also helps to fasten a new habit to an old one. Most people already have fixed points in the day: the first cup of coffee, the drive to work, lunch, bedtime. Put the Bible beside the coffee. Pray for your list on the drive. Read a psalm before you turn out the light.

Dryness

Every believer who keeps the disciplines long enough will hit seasons when they feel empty: the Bible seems flat, prayer seems to hit the ceiling. The psalmists knew this. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" (Psalm 42:1-2). And again: "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Psalm 63:1). The thirst itself is a sign of life.

Keep going. Change the form if it has gone stale (read a different book, pray aloud, walk while you pray), but do not stop. Watson admitted the difficulty and answered it: "Though while we are first entering upon meditation it may seem hard, yet when once we are entered it is sweet and pleasant."³⁰ Talk to a mature believer. Check your sleep and your health; tiredness can feel like spiritual dryness. And remember the promise: "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9).

Failure

You will miss days. Sometimes weeks. The enemy will tell you that you have failed, so you may as well quit. Scripture says something else: "For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again" (Proverbs 24:16). The mercies of God "are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:23). Tomorrow is a new morning. Pick up the plan where you are, not where you think you should be. Do not try to "catch up" on missed chapters; just read today's.

Paul, near the end of his life, still spoke of himself as running: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after... forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).

Pride

The opposite danger is just as real. A believer who keeps his disciplines well can begin to look down on those who do not, or to think God owes him for his faithfulness. That is the Pharisee again, fasting twice a week. The cure is to remember that every good habit is a gift: "by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Corinthians 15:10). Keep your disciplines secret where Jesus said to. Speak of them, if at all, only to help someone else begin.

Books that have helped

The disciplines have a long literature. One book stands out for its reach. Lewis Bayly's The Practice of Piety, most likely first published in 1611, went through at least twenty-six editions in Bayly's own lifetime and 118 in English before the end of the eighteenth century, and was translated into Dutch, German, Welsh and other languages; one historian ranks it among the four most popular devotional books of early modern Europe.³¹ John Bunyan's first wife brought two books into their poor marriage, "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety; which her father had left her when he died." Bunyan wrote, "In these two books I would sometimes read with her, wherein I also found some things that were somewhat pleasing to me (but all this while I met with no conviction)."³² The books did not save him. But they were part of the long road by which God brought him to Christ. Good books are not Scripture, and they never replace it; but God uses them.

For further reading, the classics quoted in this paper are all free online and are worth reading whole: Watson on meditation, Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest, Müller's Life of Trust, Ryle's Holiness. Among living writers, Donald S. Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life is a sound, Scripture-centred guide.³³

The disciplines are not a ladder we climb to reach God. Christ came down to us; that is the gospel. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). The disciplines are what a saved sinner does next. They are the ordinary, outward means by which Christ feeds and trains His people: His word read, studied, memorised and meditated on; prayer; fasting; the Lord's day with His church, the preaching and the Supper; confession; service; giving; a simple life; time alone with Him; and witness to others.

None of them is magic. None of them earns anything. All of them are commanded or modelled in Scripture, and all of them are means God has promised to use. The believer who keeps them will not become proud if he remembers where they came from, and will not despair if he remembers who keeps him.

The picture Scripture gives of such a life is a tree: "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" (Psalm 1:3). Trees do not grow by straining. They grow by staying planted near the water. The disciplines are how we stay planted.

A next step

Choose two things and begin them this week:

1. A daily time with the Word and prayer. Ten or fifteen minutes. Read a chapter (start with Mark), choose one verse to think over, and turn it into prayer, as Müller did. 2. The Lord's day with a Bible-believing church. Every week. Pray beforehand for the preacher and for your own heart.

When those are steady, open the companion Spiritual Disciplines: A Checklist and add one more. Read Encountering God when you are ready to learn biblical meditation properly. Read the Bible free at kylelauriano.com/library.

An invitation

If you have read this far and you are not sure you know Christ at all, the disciplines are not where you start. They are for disciples. You start where every disciple started: with the Lord Himself, who says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). Repent, believe, and come. Everything else in this paper will follow.