Practical Faith

Spiritual disciplines form us as disciples of Jesus - following his example, obeying God’s instruction, continually refining our lives to bring him honor and glory. Over the last several weeks of pondering, practicing, and conversing about these disciplines, I have realized that they not only form us to be like Jesus but serve as a way to make space for him in my life. With the implementation of each one, there is an invitation and even a desire to have less of me and more of Jesus. Today, we talk about the spiritual disciplines of confession and repentance. Two acts that require humility and a genuine desire to follow Jesus.

Spiritual disciplines - when directed by God’s word - help us to form our body, mind, and heart to be more like Jesus. The disciplines aren’t our salvation, but a demonstration of our pursuit of placing God and our relationship with him as our priority. Spiritual discipline signals a willingness to bend our desires toward God’s desires and a trust that his ways are better than our own. Today we are talking about the spiritual discipline of fasting - one of the least valued and most misunderstood practices here in western Christian culture. So let’s address those misconceptions using scripture to shape our thoughts and applications of fasting - from what examples we see in the Bible, when fasting is employed, and what it does to form us as spiritual bodies.

Spiritual Discipline is a general posture of self-control and commitment to habits that form us to be like Jesus. It’s also a term we use for the specific practices that define and denote a life of one who trusts and follows Jesus. One of the primary disciplines of the Christian faith is one we observe and learn about from Genesis to Revelation. Prayer is the means by which we communicate with God our praise, thanks, questions, requests, needs, and confessions. How do we develop a discipline of prayer? How does it shape and transform us? And why, if God is sovereign, do we need to pray at all? We dive into all of this and more today on The Practical Faith podcast.

Our lives are shaped by our habits, rhythms, and patterns, and what we do is shaped by what we believe. Before we dive into a closer look at specific Spiritual Disciplines, let’s make sure that we approach them not as hoops to jump through, but as skills we desire to hone in our pursuit as a disciple to be more like Jesus. What keeps us from just making a list and checking the boxes to make us feel or appear to be “spiritual”? It's all in the approach.

Our lives are shaped by our habits, rhythms, and patterns - some which we’ve intentionally developed and some because - whether we like them or not - we just don’t know how to do it any other way. If we have agency over the way our lives are formed (and I think we do), then let’s choose disciplines that make us more like Jesus and learn together how to integrate these practices into our everyday lives.

The season of Advent is coming to an end- the preparations we’ve made for Christmas are laying the way for us to celebrate over the next several days. Matt Smith - lead pastor at Vintage Church - and I are tracing the story of Christmas through the Bible in this Advent series and sharing how its truth is shaping the way we live. In the final episode of this series, we are reflecting on our own Advent seasons, the Christmas story, and what God is teaching us through it.

It’s the half way point of Advent - our preparations for Christmas are kicking into a higher gear as we live in the “almost not yet” time of the season. Matt Smith - lead pastor at Vintage Church - and I are tracing the story of Christmas through the Bible in this Advent series and sharing how its truth is shaping the way we live. In this episode we reflect on the prophecies preceding the birth of Jesus and the ones we’ve yet to see fulfilled.