Discipline Yourself For the Purpose of Godliness...For Free...If You Hurry!

March is one of my favorite months of the year because of March Madness- the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I really enjoy watching the games, trying to figure out who will win and hoping for upsets. It is really impressive to watch disciplined athletes performing at the highest level. How did they get to that level? Did it all just come to them naturally? No. It comes through (in my best Allen Iverson imitation) practice. It takes discipline and practice to reach that level.

How should one think about the concept of discipline as it relates to the Christian life? Is discipline somehow in opposition to grace? Or could the Spiritual Disciplines actually be one of the channels that God uses to transform his people?

The pursuit of growth in godliness for those who are followers of Jesus is of great importance and at the same time it can be an incredibly daunting topic. Where should one start? What practices or habits should I seek to develop? How does the grace of God interact with the concept of discipline.

One of the books that has been most helpful to me over the years and that I often still consult and recommend to others is Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney. I highly recommend it to you whether you are you have been a Christian for decades or you have just recently come to faith in Christ. Dr. Whitney tackles the topic of spiritual disciplines in a very biblical, helpful and practical way.

If you prefer to listen as well as to read, you can download a free audio version for the rest of the month of March here.

Listen to the Gospel of John- It's Free!

There are a variety of ways for us to engage the Scriptures in our lives. We can read, meditate, study, listen and more. As we continue our series on the Gospel of John, I'd encourage you to consider listening to this great book as well as reading it. Here is a link where you can download the entire Gospel of John in the ESV (the translation we use on Sunday) for free. I think you may find the practice of listening to the Scriptures to be quite helpful to you.

"He must increase but I must decrease."

I have decided to try blogging on a variety of topics somewhat regularly. The posts may be in order to elaborate on a sermon, point to some helpful resources, or for me to just aimlessly ramble.

On Sunday, we looked at John 3.22-36. John the Baptist faced the great temptation to be jealous of the growing ministry of Jesus and the lessening of his own ministry. In the face of that temptation, John made this profound statement, "He must increase, but I must decrease." I wonder how often our thoughts are closer to this, "Jesus, help ME to increase."

It's one thing to talk of growing in our allegiance to Christ and cultivating a heart of humility and it's another thing to do that. I would like to recommend a couple of resources to you in this area. One book that I have found to be quite helpful is Humility by C.J. Mahaney.

In the book, Mahaney quotes John Stott as saying, "At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend." As Mahaney says we all need to set ourselves on the course of mortifying pride and cultivating humility by the power and grace of God.

If you would like to listen to two sermons by Mahaney on this topic you can download them here.

May God grow us by his grace and empower by His Spirit that we, too, might be able to say, "He must increase but I must decrease."