Be Intentional About Spending Time in God’s Word Each Day I read Scripture every day and have for most of my adult life. I’ve formed a Bible reading habit. It’s become an essential part of my life, just like eating and sleeping. Reading God’s Word has become natural and normal for me. And I encourage […]
God Equips Us to Grow His Kingdom The Bible talks about “gifts of the Spirit,” which we commonly call spiritual gifts (not to be confused with spiritual disciplines). Paul teaches about spiritual gifts extensively in his first letter to the church in Corinth. But what are spiritual gifts? Here’s what we can learn from him. […]
Make Spending Time with the Almighty a Priority God deserves our best, not whatever’s left over at the end of the day—if anything. This may be why he told the Israelites to give to him their first fruits, the first of their harvest (Exodus 23:16). That’s why we should start each day with God, with […]
Discover What the Bible Says about Tithing We’ve talked about tithing, giving 10 percent of our income to God. If we do it as a way to honor him or draw closer to him, then tithing with this attitude is a great idea and an example of a spiritual discipline. However if you tithe because […]
Beware the Risks of Clearing Your Mind Several years ago, my spiritual director recommended I consider centering prayer as a spiritual discipline. About the same time, a dear friend was exploring this technique as well. The goal of centering prayer is to connect us with God. It’s more about hearing from him then him hearing […]
The Holy Spirit Gives Us a Sound Mind to Counter Fear Through the Holy Spirit we have a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Sound mind means self-discipline, self-control, sound judgment, and wise discretion. We can claim all these as the Holy Spirit’s provision to us. In doing so we can direct our thoughts and not […]
Some People Avoid Persecution and Others Pursue It In my post that listed spiritual disciplines, I explained that spiritual disciplines are an activity we willingly pursue to draw us closer to God or to honor him. After listing seventeen examples of spiritual disciplines, I wondered about four more possibilities. One of those is suffering. Is […]
In Today’s Noisy World We Need to Reclaim the Ability to Deeply Listen We live in a noisy world, with too many things vying for our attention. Though we can’t help some of it, much of the noise that permeates our existence is the distractions we create. We can’t stand silence, not even for a […]
God Doesn’t Want Part of Our Attention; He Deserves 100 Percent As the main speaker talked at a business conference, I looked around our table of eight. Seven people had their smartphones out, pushing buttons with intention and staring at those tiny screens as if they showed the most essential of images. Why were they […]
Last Sunday I asked if going to church is a spiritual discipline. I surprised myself. As I wrote to discover the answer, my opinion shifted from “no” to “it could be.” Today I ask the same question about tithing. Remember that a spiritual discipline is something we willingly do to draw us closer to God […]