SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES OR GRACE?
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Titus 2:11-13
The question on how to live the Christian life continues to this very hour. The debate has occurred on many fields: Gomarus/Arminius, Whitefield/Wesley, Reformed Baptists/Freewill Baptists, Reformation Protestantism/Roman Catholicism, etc. etc. The essential question is, “Does one enter into a high state of intimacy with God via an intentional exercise of spiritual disciplines or are spiritual disciplines the fruit of receiving God’s grace?” How you answer this question is how you will live out your Christian life. If you believe that spiritual disciplines aid and abet the life of grace you will no doubt devise a spiritual plan to get there. You will hedge your life with disciplines such as Bible reading, meditation, daily prayer, fasting, sacraments and fellowship. The more you adhere to the regular exercise of those disciplines the closer you will be to God. Holy acts of the will lead to more intimacy with God. This spiritual paradigm is found in all sectors of Christianity and expressed by a variety of formulas. What unites all these formulas is the truth that one must harness one’s spiritual will to find greater spiritual life.
If, however, you believe that grace alone is the source of all good spiritual fruit, then you will live your Christian life much differently. Your life will be spent receiving the grace of God in Christ and allowing what God has already done to nurture and grow your soul. Both paradigms may look relatively similar on the outside. The big difference lies in what is out of view to the casual observer. The first paradigm reflects a heart that finds its identity in doing while the second paradigm reflects a heart that finds its identity in receiving. Now it is true that all Christians must be about the task of doing, that is, obeying the Lord. So the issue here is not if the Christian is to be “doing” but where the “doing” lies in the formula of one’s life. Does the “doing” contribute in any way to the person’s spirituality or is “doing” the fruit of the constant reception of God’s grace into the soul? That is the question.
In a increasingly chaotic and godless American church there is a strong movement toward tightening up the Christian life by reintroducing an old medieval concept of spiritual formation. The cry of many churches, seminaries and Bible colleges is clarion. “Let us get back to the old disciplined approach to Christianity in light of our failing culture.” And many places have taken the bait. They advocate that Christians take a daily dose of spiritual disciplines which will surely bring the soul into a better state of health. Spiritual disciplines guru Dallas Willard agrees with this approach. He quotes medieval mystic/monk Abba Evagrius,
“There are eight principal thoughts, from which all other thoughts stem. The first thought is of gluttony; the second, of fornication; the third, of love of money; the fourth, of discontent; the fifth, of anger; the sixth, of despondency; the seventh, of vainglory; the eighth, of pride. Whether these thoughts disturb the soul or not does not depend on us; but whether they linger in us or not and set passions in motion or not—does depend on us.”
This is typical language for “disciplinarians.” The victorious Christian life does “depend on us,” on our will.
But in all of this something is missing, something called grace.
Grace is the opposite of doing. Grace is receiving. And the Bible, in its typical counterintuitive way, teaches that godly living flows from receiving and not from doing. Grace, of course, has a long history of being attacked by the “doing” crowd. To some, grace sounds like taking a freebee so that one need not work. To others grace is a way of avoiding the struggles of sanctification. Just “let go and let God.” But grace is neither. Grace is the constant understanding of one’s bankruptcy before God and the constant reception of the God’s gift of salvation in order that one might be able to live a life beyond one’s native ability. Grace is the daily exercise of leaning ever harder upon the goodness of God in Christ and trusting Him in every aspect of life. Grace is living a life in light of the liberating power that comes from forgiveness of sins. Grace is not easy. But its difficulty lies not in working ourselves to God but in allowing God to work in us. And when grace is the operative principle in life it becomes a real tonic that heals a sin-loving soul and transforms it into a God-loving soul. As the text above says, grace teaches its students to deny godly lusts. It instructs them to live soberly and rightly. And it provokes the receptive heart to look for that full, free and final redemption.
The way to freedom is not by running hard on the treadmill of works but casting yourself in the arms of the truly free One and allowing Him to carry you into the promise land by HIs labors alone. We live by Jesus’ spiritual disciplines and not our own.