The main spiritual disciplines are Bible reading, meditation, prayer, and fasting. When we start to think about them, the first thing we must get out of our minds is that that they are Have-To’s. We shouldn’t think of them as religious duties designed to earn favor with God. That kind of thinking works on the spiritual disciplines like the Midas Touch in reverse. It turns their gold into heavy lead weights we have to lug around. No wonder the faces of the Pharisees were disfigured when they fasted (Mt 7:1). They carried the spiritual disciplines like burdensome religious requirements. That is the very opposite of what God designed them for. 

The truth is God designed the activities we call the spiritual disciplines as blessings for growth and grace, not as burdens to be slavishly borne. We ought to receive them as gifts from our loving Heavenly Father. Unfortunately, the Pharisees – and many of us good religious people since the Pharisees – have treated spiritual disciplines like stepping-stones that earn favor with God. But spiritual disciplines are not stepping-stones to greater blessings; they are the blessings.

The Bible is a gift that helps us know God and ourselves. Prayer is a gift that enables us to respond to what God has revealed in his Word and his world and to talk with him. Fasting is a gift designed to bring focus back to our scattered lives.

God is not like the IRS, saying “pay your religious taxes or we’re coming for you”, but a good father who has lavished his children with gifts to help us flourish in relationship with him and grow into the best version of ourselves. Like any good father, God doesn’t force us to use the gifts he has provided. Rather, he encourages us. “Draw near to God,” is the invitation, “and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8). In the matter of salvation God acted first (Rom 6:7-10), but in the matter of growing close to him, he asks us to take the first step. We must get out our Bibles and begin to read, we must get on our knees and begin to pray, we must learn to meditate and to fast. God doesn’t make us do it, he invites us to do it. And as we take those steps of faith he promises to meet us with grace (Heb 4:16). 

I was once given a bicycle. If you’ve done much bike riding, you know that riding a bike is very different from driving a car. A bike is a ticket to adventure, a chance to feel fully alive. You can get out on sunny days and take in God’s creation with all five senses. Riding a bike, you feel the wind in your face and smell the pine trees, you taste the brisk air in your mouth and feel it in your lungs, you see the world in panorama and hear every sound in high fidelity. The generous gift of a bicycle offered me a chance to experience that kind of adventure, all while improving my flagging physique. But the only way for me to derive any benefit at all from the bike is to get on the thing. All the potential for better health, more family time, refreshment, and adventure is just that- potential. I have to make the effort to get my gear, pull the bike out of the shed, hop on, and start pedaling.

The Christian disciplines are like that. They are incredible gifts with the potential to give grace, help us grow to be more like Christ, and even come into the presence of God. But the gifts themselves are just raw potential. If we want the growth and grace they offer, we have to make the effort to learn them and put them into regular practice.

Sometimes practicing the spiritual disciplines feels like pedaling uphill for miles at a time- lots of pain and very little progress. But there are sweet and smooth downhill runs, too. If we can stick with it, in the long run the grace and growth we experience from using God’s good gifts will be more than worth the effort.