►Spiritual Disciplines:

22/11/09 NB: Home Group Questions on Spiritual Disciplines & Meditation at the end.

THESE OUTLINE NOTES ARE PROVIDED MAINLY TO HELP YOU GO THROUGH
THE BIBLE REFERENCES YOURSELF AND SEE WHAT LESSONS YOU LEARN.

MY 17 LESSONS FROM THE 10 QUOTED PASSAGES ARE NEAR THE END.
SEE IF YOU AGREE, OR FIND MORE LESSONS, AND POST THEM ON THE BLOG.

This series should lead to individual actions, should make a difference, should not just be knowledge about the subject, but should be skills for your walk with God.

Hence the need to take notes and dig, develop your own Bible Study, not just learn from teaching on Sundays.

The subjects this encompasses:
►Bible Study;
Meditation;
Prayer;
Fasting;
Giving;
(Sermon on Mt)
Worship;
Silence/Solitude; etc.

NB: Be honest – We all feel rubbish at all of these, the preachers are not 'experts.'



►Legalism?
Is this just a load of Legalism?
Things you have to do to have/earn a good relationship with God?

Question:
When does the 2012 Olympic 100 metres start?
It started at least 10 years ago, and involved LOTS of training and hard work, on a daily and disciplined basis.
cf. Bolt <10 seconds of success, years of effort:

Worth effort to cultivate a relationship with God?
Better than running fast for 10 seconds!

►Legalism or Relationship?
cf. communication in marriage
NOT claiming to be the greatest husband at this, by the way!
BUT To have a good relationship or marriage involves loving decisions involving effort and communication, even/especially when it's a difficult time.

You can't grow a relationship purely on the feelings involved in the good times.
To have 'success' in your relationship with God involves the same commitment to
disciplined communication, listening and time spent together.

You are, of course, always in God's presence as you go about daily life (Psalm 139) just as you would be in the kitchen with one of you cooking and the other washing up.

BUT it wouldn't be a great relationship if you didn't actually have some specific set aside time just to focus on each other as well. This needs planning and decisions, to create and protect that time.

That's what the spiritual disciplines are in the context of your relationship with God. Your relationship with God should not JUST be the equivalent of a few snatched pleasantries mumbled through a spray of toast crumbs to the wife in passing as you grab your breakfast and run out of the door.

You should create time, protect it, stick to it even (especially???) if it doesn't feel like it's going well, and learn how you best meet God. This takes time, and it changes over the years, like any other relationship.

Theme: Gospel History of Man and God – Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven.

►Relationship Restored
Eden relationship – rebellion – independence – separation = sin, our state separated
from God, who designed us to walk with Him in the garden.

Leads to inevitable death as we took independence from the Eternal source of our
life.

‘Where are You?’ The relationship is His idea, His desire.

God WANTS to know you, and have leisurely enjoyed time to waste with you in the
garden.

Cross = many functions (e.g. atonement/substitution)

Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven.
RESTORATION of RELATIONSHIP and Eternal Life.

►John 17:2-3 (English Standard Version)
2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

►Why teach Spiritual Disciplines?
a)Because we have an increasing number of people who have not been brought up in a Christian background (Thank Goodness!!!) and who we tend to assume will know or work out how to cultivate a relationship with God.

and
b) because it’s easy for those with a Christian background or history of their own to start coasting and rely more on knowledge picked up over the years than on a current vibrant intimate passionate daily walk with God.

►The goal: A current vibrant intimate passionate daily walk with God.

►What are the Spiritual Disciplines?
Bible Study – different methods:
Themes, Passages, Word Studies, Commentaries, Notes/Reading Plans;
Meditation;

NB: Bible =
a) God's foundational/instructional word
b) God's word/voice for today
c) Knowledge of God, what He's like
All 3 needed, giving foundations, ability to persevere despite circumstances.

Prayer; Relationship with God, talk, listen, ask, authority.
Fasting;
Giving;
(Sermon on Mt)
Worship;

Silence/Solitude; etc.

►Our example:
Jesus: Divine Superman or Just Like Us?
If the Perfect Man, with the perfect relationship with God,
who knew no sin, but who came to represent, teach and restore us,
who was tempted just as we are, who grew and learned, and 'was perfected,'

If He needed to exercise spiritual disciplines to cultivate and preserve His relationship with God – with whom He was eternally co-equal and unseparated by sin, then HOW MUCH MORE DO WE??!!

So did he?
Jesus Spiritual Disciplines
►Study demonstrated in His early life
Luke 2: 42-49

All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
(= Divine Download or Human effort to study God's word and learn???)

►Study demonstrated in His Teaching
Luke 4: 14-29

'My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?' Psalm 22.

(►Cf Ephesians 6:

(14 "Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth”
= the need to study and meditate on truth.)

►Prayer in action – guidance
Matthew 14
23 After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone. (= 6 insights into Jesus' prayer habits)

Luke 6
12 One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. 13 At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles.

►Prayer in action – resisting temptation cf. Meditation
= Study + Prayer = Digestion!

The Temptations resisted through knowledge of the truth of scripture, each of them fought back with a specific memorised OT quotes.


Gethsemane Matthew 26
36-41 "Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give
in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

Giving demonstrated, not just financial
Fasting prioritised along with Prayer and Giving, Sermon on Mount
Silence/Solitude – all night, etc
Worship

First topic
Bible Meditation:
►Recommended book:
'Celebration of Discipline' by Richard Foster, which draws on all Christian traditions.

BUT I would recommend caution in the Chapter on Meditation, which unfortunately
happens to be the first chapter. It draws on a mystical Catholic background – nothing especially wrong with that, as he remains very Biblically focussed, but then he outlines some example meditative exercises that use the imagination and imagery in such a way that if you have experienced meditation outside of the Christian tradition, and haven't been a Christian very long, then it could have unhelpful echoes of 'spiritual' experiences which were not Holy Spirit led, and could lead you back towards those practices in a negative way.

So, while recommending the book as a whole, I'm going to avoid that chapter,
and look simply at Biblical definitions.

►Biblical meaning of meditation:
The word 'meditation' has become so attached to an activity linked to Eastern, New Age, mystical experiences, that in order to focus on what should be meant by meditation, we have to call it 'Biblical meditation,'

In fact, meditation has VERY old roots within the Christian Biblical tradition, as well as in different Christian traditions.

Here are 10 references to meditation, and observations based on them.

NB: Hebrew 2 words:
1: Think, ponder;
2: Ruminate, Chew, Digest.


►Genesis 24: 63
And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming.

Alone, separate from distractions – except camels, deliberate.

►Joshua 1: 8
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Meditate on God's Law/God's Word/Scripture, and it translates into action and 'success.'

(NB: Be careful how you define 'success' or 'prosperous.' God doesn't mean the size of your bank account.)


►Psalm 1: 2
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,and on his law he meditates day and night.

It should be a delight, not a chore. It is a pattern, a rhythm, that takes in day and night.

►Psalm 63: 6
When I remember you upon my bed,and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

A good activity both deliberately as final thoughts before sleeping, and during insomnia, which can be frustrating and stressful, or could be God's invitation to draw closer.


►Psalm 77
1 I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.
3When I remember God, I moan;
when I meditate, my spirit faints.
4You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5I consider the days of old,
the years long ago.
6I said, "Let me remember my song in the night;
let me meditate in my heart."
Then my spirit made a diligent search ......
...... 11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
12I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.

A good response to problems or trouble.
Based on remembering, recalling, God, His Word, His actions, and His Creation.
It takes a decision, it doesn't necessarily come naturally.
It involves pondering, slow deliberate recollection, thinking, and drawing conclusions.
It involves the imagination, bringing events back to mind.
Somewhere in between (the connection) Bible Study and Prayer.

►Psalm 119: 15
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

Deliberate decision not to be distracted, but to focus on God's character and actions.

►Psalm 119: 23
Even though princes sit plotting against me,your servant will meditate on your statutes.

A good response to opposition of God's purposes in your life.

►Psalm 119: 27
Make me understand the way of your precepts,and I will meditate on your wondrous
works.

Meditation helps you to understand God's ways.

►Psalm119: 48
I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,and I will meditate on your statutes.

►Psalm 119: 78
Let the insolent be put to shame,because they have wronged me with falsehood;as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.

►Psalm 119: 148
My eyes are awake before the watches of the night,that I may meditate on your promise.

A good activity as first thoughts when waking, to have a Godly mindset for the day.
cf. TV/Radio/Facebook/Noise!!! = me.

►Psalm 143: 5
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done;I ponder the work of your hands.

►Psalm 145: 5
On the glorious splendour of your majesty,and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

Recalling God's activity in your life.
Recalling God's activity in History.

►17 (slightly repetitive!) lessons from those verses:
1. Deliberate, Alone, separate from distractions (except camels)
2. You can Meditate on God's Law/God's Word/Scripture, and it translates into action and 'success.' (NB: Be careful how you define 'success' or 'prosperous.' God doesn't mean the size of your bank account.)
3. It should be a delight, not a chore. It is a pattern, a rhythm, that takes in day and
night.
4. A good activity both deliberately as final thoughts before sleeping, and during insomnia, which can be frustrating and stressful, or could be God's invitation to draw closer.
5. A good response to problems or trouble.
6. Based on remembering, recalling, God, His Word, His actions, and His Creation.
7. It takes a decision, it doesn't necessarily come naturally.
8. It involves pondering, slow deliberate recollection, thinking, and drawing conclusions.
9. It involves the imagination, bringing events back to mind.
10. Somewhere in between (the connection) Bible Study and Prayer.
11. Deliberate decision not to be distracted, but to focus on God's character and actions.
12. A good response to opposition of God's purposes in your life.
13. Meditation helps you to understand God's ways.
14. A good activity as first thoughts when waking, to have a Godly mindset for the day.
15. Recalling God's activity in your life.
16. Recalling God's activity in History.
17. Thinking and marvelling at Creation.

(NB: That’s A Bible Study method!!! – cf.Maggie??!! Use a dictionary or a concordance, or www.biblegateway.com and search through all references to a word. That's the method we've just used!)

►Need to know: Methods; Time; Place; Purpose.
...................................................................
Feedback to guide teaching to needs???
a) current habits
b) 'correct' habits
c) want to learn
d) Help needed – teaching
e) Help needed – tools e.g. Journal?

H Gp Questions:
Read Psalm 77: (1-12 at least!)
1: Ask the Group for Honest feedback;
How easy do you find Bible Study/Meditation/Prayer as a daily discipline?
On the run is OK, but only on the basis of set aside time as well.

What's the pattern you follow – time, place, how long, how often, methods, tools.
How well do you really stick to this?

2: Teaching needs?
In the list of Spiritual Disciplines, what areas do you feel the need for teaching?
It would be good to get feedback via the series Blog:
http://jezsblazeblog.blogspot.com/

3: What's the most helpful lesson, advice, book, etc you've ever had that has helped you in your spiritual disciplines?

This would also be good to get feedback via the series Blog:
http://jezsblazeblog.blogspot.com/

4: Word search 'meditate' in a good translation, using a Concordance or word list at the back of someone's Bible.

Hope this is helpful and gets more useful as we (especially me) learn how to use it!!!