SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 1
Spiritual Disciplines
Justin Hayes
Liberty University
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 2
Spiritual Disciplines
Leadership and Delight in God
I have never truly taken time to consider and formulate a statement describing what
man’s highest response is or should be. After consideration and study, I would have to agree
whole heartedly with Shaw (2017) and Strobel (2013), who consider delight to be man’s highest
response to God. In Romans 7:22-23 (KJV), as shared by Strobel (2013), Paul states, “For I
delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members.” I believe that Paul was able to truly delight in God as a result of his understanding of
himself and his understanding of God. Strobel (2013) speaks to this truth when he states, “To
know God we have to know ourselves, because knowing God entails coming into relationship
with him” (p. 96).
In the bible study The Gospel Centered Life, the authors seek to shed light on the
concepts of how we as Christians will either make the cross big in our live or we will minimize
the cross in our lives (Thune & Walker, 2011). When a Christian has a growing knowledge of
his or her own sinful depravity and a growing knowledge of the perfect holiness of God, he or
she will be confronted with the great chasm between God and himself or herself that must be
bridged (Thune & Walker, 2011). He or she will either reduce God’s holiness or downplay his or
her sinfulness and in so doing minimize the work of Christ on the cross, or he or she will be
thankful for the work of Christ on the cross and delight in the fact that God himself bridge the
gap through His son Jesus Christ (Thune & Walker, 2011). To delight in God, man must know
himself. Shaw (2017) states, “If God is not my chief delight, my talk of God will be heartless,
forced speech” (p. 101). To cultivate this delight in God personally and in the ministry, we must
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 3
be willing to take a deep dive into Scripture to know God profoundly and what He says about us
so that we, like David invites, might “…taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man
that trusteth in him” (Psalm 34:8, KJV). Throughout the Psalms we can see many declarations of
delight in God in the good times, but especially in the bad time. This speaks to the connection
between our delight in God and our thankfulness for what He has done for us through His Son.
Edwards, Leadership, and Resolutions
As a thirty-nine-year-old pastor/missionary I must be honest and admit that I have not
taken seriously and have not put in the work to develop purposeful and effective personal
resolutions by which I might govern my life. That is not to say that I have been rudderless in my
life and ministry. Strobel’s (2013) statement to open chapter seven cut me to the core, he states,
“To understand what we do, and why we do what we do, we must always keep the big picture in
mind. This big picture has to do with the triune God of glory and beauty who has called us into
his own life. That calling entails a life of response” (p. 143). When Jesus called His disciples to
leave behind their lives and lively hoods to follow Him, He was calling them to a decision to act.
When Jesus calls we must respond.
On a personal level, I am resolved to employ and observe a version of the concept of the
Sabbath. I am an over achiever by nature and I rarely take time for myself. As a result, I have
caused an over active stress response in my body which has caused me to suffer from an auto-
immune disease. I must make time to rest, recover, and to develop a deeper personal relationship
with my Heavenly Father. Taking this personal Sabbath will help to alleviate the stresses on
everyday life and allow for a deeper dependence on God (Strobel, 2013).
In my family life, I am resolved to raise my sons in the knowledge of God to be men that
love and serve God with their lives. Proverbs 22:6 (KJV) states, “Train up a child in the way he
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 4
should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” To accomplish this resolution there
are to requirements: (1) Teach my sons to love and apply God’s Word in their lives, and (2) Live
out biblical principles in front of my boys. In order to teach my sons to love and apply God’s
Word, I myself must know, love, and apply God’s Word.
In my ministry, I am resolved to actively practice conferencing. Being an over achiever
and being very self-reliant I have overlooked the need as a pastor to have a more mature
accountability partner who can speak truth in my life as it pertains to the ministry of the
pastorate. I believe that this is evident in the ministry of Paul. Not only did Paul allow others in
ministry impact his life and ministry, but God also used him to help and impact the life and
ministries of others.
Learning Disciplines from Leaders
During the reading assignments of this course I have been profoundly impacted by the
lives of these men that were greatly used of God. While I have been impacted be the life and
faithfulness of Bonhoeffer and his approach to ministry and the Christian life, I have been most
impressed with Jonathan Edwards. Strobel (2013) shares several spiritual practices in Jonathan
Edwards life that have directly impacted my life, the first of which is silence and solitude. I live
in Spain, and the Spanish people are not known for calmness. They are a very passionate people
and we often find that life can become very chaotic very quickly. This culturally motivated
chaos has the tendency to crowd out spiritual things that are of greater importance. As Strobel
(2013) states, “The benefit is the result of the space created in one’s life to be present to the Lord.
It is often only in the quiet that God illuminates his presence” (p. 157).
Another spiritual practice that I am putting into practice in my life is fasting. Strobel
(2013) shares Edwards mindset regarding fasting as, “an opportunity to prepare the hearts of
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 5
God’s people. It is taking on a posture of receiving by embracing our weakness” (p. 147). In
other words, through fasting we prove the perfect strength of Jesus as He works in and through
us in moments of weakness. This requires a certain amount of humility as it takes away our
ability to depend on ourselves and reveals our level of dependency on God.
As I mentioned before, I am putting into practice the concept of conferencing. I have
neglected this aspect of the Christian life and the ministry of the pastorate. This concept is one
that emphasizes the aspect of community in the Christian life. Strobel (2013) states, “Everyone
was expected to have a person to conference with. Whether you were a minister, a farmer, a
teenager or a mother of ten, you were to share life with a companion on the journey” (p. 149).
God never designed the Christian life to be lived in isolation. God is a trinity and is the perfect
embodiment of community as He lives in perfect community within the three persons of the God
Head. Living in conference with others allows those in your life to provide perspective.
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 6
References
Shaw, Mark (2017) 10 Great Ideas from Church History: A Decision – Maker’s Guide to Shaping
Your Church. InterVarsity Press.
Strobel, K. (2013). Formed for the glory of God: learning from the spiritual practices of
Jonathan Edwards. Ivp Books.
Thune, B., & Walker, W. (2011). The gospel-centered life: a nine-lesson study:
leader's guide. New Growth Press.
