Any training - physical, mental, or spiritual - is characterized at first by failure. We fail more often than we succeed. but if we persevere, we gradually see progress till we are succeeding more often than we are failing. this is true as we seek to put to death particular sins. at first it seems we are making no progress, so we become discouraged and think, what's the use? i can never overcome that sin. that is exactly what Satan wants us to think.
-Jerry Bridges, Pursuit of Holiness
I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I've realized that I stopped caring that much about spiritual discipline. I've adopted this que sera attitude toward my spiritual life thinking all the bells and whistles aren't worth the regular tunings. If I read my Bible most days and pray when prayer comes to mind and go to Bible study and church every Sunday....it'll all just fall into place. The change I knew should be coming in my life I wanted now, and when discipline wasn't "working" I quickly gave it up for something easier.
What I wanted was instant sanctification.
Not because of anything I've been actively seeking to learn lately, but something that has (obviously sovereignly) come to my mind is spiritual warfare. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour [1 Peter 5:8]. It seems easy for me to assent in my head that, yes, I need to be actively pursuing holiness with a spiritual discipline, but to actually bend my will to do it is different altogether. I know I must ask the Lord for this. We're pathetic aren't we? We need to ask the Lord to help us love him. And even this gets tiring. I don't know about you, but I grow tired of asking the Lord day after day to cause me to want to obey His commandments and trust that He will do it. If I've learned anything about the Christian life, one thing I've learned well is that this is what it looks like.
Always failing, always repenting, then grace abounding. Always learning, always forgetting, always being reminded.
This battle cannot be fought in ambiguous terms and and undefined platitudes. James 1:22 warns of vague spirituality...a Christianity that you agree with cognitively, but don't apply specifically ["but instead be doers of the word..."].
I don't know what else to say. Just something I've been thinking about lately.
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