Do We Allow the World to Control Our Thoughts? The Holy Spirit Gives Us a Sound Mind to Counter Fear Through the Holy Spirit we have a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Sound mind means self-discipline, self-control, sound judgment, and wise...
Is Suffering a Spiritual Discipline We Should Pursue? Some People Avoid Persecution and Others Pursue It In my post that listed spiritual disciplines, I explained that spiritual disciplines are an activity we willingly pursue to draw us closer to...
What Are Spiritual Gifts? God Equips Us to Grow His Kingdom The Bible talks about “gifts of the Spirit,” which we commonly call spiritual gifts (not to be confused with spiritual disciplines). Paul teaches about spiritual gifts extensively in his...
The Spirituality of Silence In Today’s Noisy World We Need to Reclaim the Ability to Deeply Listen We live in a noisy world, with too many things vying for our attention. Though we can’t help some of it, much of the noise that permeates our...
Can Technology Hurt Our Relationship with God? God doesn’t want part of our attention; he deserves 100 percent As the main speaker talked at a business conference, I looked around our table of eight. Seven people had their smartphones out...
Be Careful If You Tithe Last Sunday we talked about tithing, giving 10 percent of our income to God. If we do it as a way to honor him or draw closer to him, then tithing with this attitude is a great idea and an example of a spiritual...
Is Tithing a Spiritual Discipline? Last Sunday I asked if going to church is a spiritual discipline. I surprised myself. As I wrote to discover the answer, my opinion shifted from “no” to “it could be.” Today I ask the same question about...
Is Going to Church a Spiritual Discipline? Two weeks ago I wrote that a spiritual discipline is something we do to draw closer to God or to honor him. To be of value we need to do this willingly with joy and in anticipation. I gave 17 possible...
What Are Spiritual Disciplines? Spiritual disciplines are things we do to draw us closer to God or to honor him. But if we do it out of obligation or in response to guilt, we miss the point. To be of real value a spiritual discipline is something...
Does Ritual Have Any Value? A byproduct of my spiritual formation is a disdain for ritual. To me, a ritual is a meaningless religious activity that is mechanically performed; it is an empty ceremony and a mindless habit, devoid of substance. This...
