If you want to live your spiritual life to the full, there is one thing you need to do: building spiritual discipline. The fact is, you can’t just go through life and hope to grow spiritually. No. You need to set some rules for yourself. You need to have spiritual discipline.
This is what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 4:7:
Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly.
It says that you need to “train yourself to be godly.” Living a godly life doesn’t just come naturally. You need to train yourself for it. It’s similar to being an athlete. You can’t just expect a good performance on the field. You need to train for it.
What does it mean to train for something? 1 Corinthians 9:25 gives us an answer:
All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.
A characteristic of training is discipline. So, if you want to train yourself to be godly, you need to have spiritual discipline.
Discipline means that you keep doing what you set yourself to do regardless of your mood. Even if you don’t feel like doing it, you still do it anyway.
Here are two spiritual disciplines that I suggest you do daily:
1. Meditating on God’s Word
Meditating on God’s Word is like giving nourishment to your spirit. Psalms 1:2-3 says:
But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
Here someone who meditates on God’s Word is likened to a tree that gets water from the river. The water keeps the tree fresh and fruitful. Similarly, meditating on God’s Word will keep you fresh and fruitful on the inside.
2. Praying
Simply put, praying means communicating with God. You need to communicate with Him. As I talked about in the podcast, this is how you can overcome worry and live in God’s peace. Philippians 4:6-7 says:
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.
Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
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If you haven’t done these two things, I suggest you do so. Allocate time daily for meditating on God’s Word. Allocate time daily for praying.
If possible, do them in the morning while your mind is still fresh. But if not, you can use any other time during the day. The important thing is that you focus your mind on God during this time and not get distracted.
You might not feel the benefits in the beginning, but I promise you that you will reap the benefits. You will be grounded much stronger spiritually. And you will be ready to face any challenge because you are with God.
