It was suggested that a dictionary definition was “Things we did as a disciple so as to be more like the person we are being discipled by”. There are other definitions but this seemed to help as we are Disciples of Christ and in order to be more like him our Spiritual part is what would need to come into line.
We have discussed the idea previously that we need to move away from the idea of ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ (WWJD) to ‘How Did Jesus Live?’ To stop trying to simple mimic Jesus from moment to moment and instead look at the lifestyle which lead to the way He responded to any given situation.
In essence, His Spiritual Disciplines.
I am sure that this is a topic which we will return to but I will leave it with this thought. I am currently reading a book by Dallas Willard called ‘The Spirit of the Disciplines.‘ Like all of Willard’s stuff it’s deep! I haven’t yet finished it but in it he suggests that there are basically 5 Spiritual Disciplines which Jesus lived out and which we should try and follow to get ourselves out of the WWJD attitude and into the HDJL way of thinking.
The 5 Willard suggests are Prayer, Studying the Word, Solitude, Fasting, and Serving. Some of these are not particularly fashionable today and I am looking forward to reading as to why Willard thinks that they are important.
I’ll let you know :o)
