Dew of Hermon | Psalm 133
FRIDAY
The Dew of Hermon Reflection 35 of 35
Reflect
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore. Psalm 133 | ESV
Receive
“In the Christian community, thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is not great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ…Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so to the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases. Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Relate
How often do you find yourself being thankful for your church, your small group, your friends? How often do you find yourself complaining about them and wishing they were different? How can we find healthy rhythms of gratitude in our relationships with others?
Respond
Pray
Lord, thank you for those you among whom you have planted me in this life. Give me the grace to bloom right here, right now – and keep me far from bitter roots of discontent and resentment.
Practice
If you don’t have a small group to connect with, try finding one. If you do, don’t miss your next meeting. And when you go, take a moment to really see each face in that circle and be thankful for it.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Spur Each Other On | Hebrews 10:19-25
THURSDAY
Reflection 34 of 35
Reflect
So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body.
So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. Hebrews 10:19-25 | MSG
Receive
“When one is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation….Yet a Christian community does not consist solely of preachers of the Word. We can go monstrously wrong here if we overlook a number of other things. The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Relate
What do you find more challenging in community life: speaking up when you have something to say, or keeping quiet even when you feel like you have to say something? Why?
Respond
Pray
Lord, work the counsel of James deep into my bones: “Let every soul be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Give me ears to hear and a heart that senses when to speak and when to be silent when I’m with others.
Practice
If you seldom say anything when you’re with others, try speaking up. If you are always the one talking, surprise everyone (and yourself) and listen instead. See what happens.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Large and Integrated Life | 1 Corinthians 12:12-13
WEDNESDAY
Reflection 33 of 35
Reflect
You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 | MSG
Receive
“In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community, which allows unemployed members to exist within it, will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship. Not self-justification, which means the use of domination and force, but justification by grace, and therefore service, should govern the Christian community. Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve. The proud throne of the judge no longer lures him; he wants to be down below with the lowly and the needy, because that is where God found him…Because the Christian can no longer fancy that he is wise he will also have no high opinion of his own schemes and plans. He will know that it is good for his own will to be broken in the encounter with his neighbor.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Relate
How connected do you feel in the body of Christ, both on the larger scale of the church and on the more intimate level of small group life? What can enhance and deepen this connection?
Respond
Pray
Lord, the enemy of my soul seeks to “kill, steal, and destroy” and to isolate. Break me out of unhealthy patterns of isolation. Liberate me into vibrant, functioning connections in the body of Christ.
Practice
Try volunteering in a ministry in the local church that will connect you with some new faces. See what happens.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Life Together | Acts 2:41-47
TUESDAY
Reflection 32 of 35
Reflect
That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.
Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved. Acts 2:41-47 | MSG
Receive
“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all of its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community, which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial…. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Relate
What is your dream for Christian community (or just community in general)? How does that dream compare with the reality you have experienced? How does it compare with what we read in Acts 2? How do Bonhoeffer’s thoughts challenge you when it comes to your dream of community?
Respond
Pray
Lord, remind me today that where “two or three are gathered in your name,” you are there. Help me not to get caught up in the shortcomings and flaws of community, nor to be content with them; give me eyes to see you there and to embrace, to receive each in community as you have placed them there.
Practice
At the next church service you attend, practice being aware of the people around you. Pray for divine eyes to see as God sees. Look for opportunities where he would have you connect.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Connect | Mark 3:13-19
MONDAY
Reflection 31 of 35
Reflect
He climbed a mountain and invited those he wanted with him. They climbed together. He settled on twelve, and designated them apostles. The plan was that they would be with him, and he would send them out to proclaim the Word and give them authority to banish demons. These are the Twelve:
Simon (Jesus later named him Peter, meaning “Rock”),
James, son of Zebedee, John, brother of James (Jesus nicknamed the Zebedee brothers Boanerges, meaning “Sons of Thunder”),
Andrew,
Philip,
Bartholomew,
Matthew,
Thomas,
James, son of Alphaeus,
Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite,
and Judas Iscariot – who betrayed him. Mark 3:13-19 | MSG
Receive
“Only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. It is not as though the one preceded the other; both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Jesus Christ. Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair. Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Life Together is a classic, brief, 122 page exploration and discussion written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and published as Gemeinsames Leben in 1938. It’s a book that flowed from his experience of Christian community when he shared a common life in emergency built houses with 25 vicars. There is little dreamy idealism to be found in its pages of Utopian Christian fellowship and what it should look like. It’s a exploration of the reality of it, its rhythms, its ebbs and its flows. The call to Christian community, to embrace the practice of connection and fellowship, ultimately emanates from the life practice of Jesus himself. Jesus knew how to stay out in solitary places; he also deliberately chose twelve men in whose company he literally spent his life. First and foremost he chose these men to be with him; secondarily he chose them so he could later send them out into the wide world of kingdom work. In our final week of reflections on the spiritual disciplines as we focus on the spiritual practice of community, I’m going to step back and allow Scripture and the words of Bonhoeffer in Life Together to speak to us, to lead us into healthy paths and practices of connecting with each other in dynamic, life-giving, face-to-face encounters.
Relate
Do you find yourself more frequently drawn to be around other people or to be alone? Why? What are some of the benefits you have experienced from being with others in community?
Respond
Pray
Lord, work into me healthy rhythms of being by myself and being with others. Keep me from the pitfalls and perils of each. Show me how to be alone and away from the constant noise of company and show me how (and where and when!) to step out of my solitude into companionship with others.
Practice
Look for an opportunity to take a leisurely walk with a friend this week with the simple agenda of enjoying each other and your time together.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Fast Day | Isaiah 58:6-9
FRIDAY
Reflection 30 of 35
Reflect
This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ Isaiah 58:6-9 | MSG
Receive
Not only is there a performance trap when it comes to the spiritual disciplines, there’s a huge me trap. There is a huge danger of any spiritual practice drifting into malignant ruts of self-righteous self-absorption. And so our Israelite ancestors fasted right on schedule – looking for the divine reward points to be credited to them as they continued stepping on their neighbors (who were no doubt interfering with their fasting). But fasting that doesn’t issue in compassion is a waste of body and spirit. You might as well eat the cheeseburger. Solitude that doesn’t lead us into being more compassionately present with others is only to exquisitely miss the whole point in a self-indulgent exercise. We should have stayed in the “prayer bunker” just a little longer. Silence that doesn’t produce more sensitive, healing communication would be better off permanent. Isaiah’s cry in the midst of our spiritual disciplines is a much needed, ongoing reminder that none of these practices is about me. Humility, generosity, kindness – these are all well beyond our reach; unlike our natural tendencies to self-absorption and self-promotion. Going without a meal, seeking solitude in an out of the way place, putting away the iPod, these are all within our reach. But the why is crucial. It really isn’t about me. It’s about me getting to a place where I can be reminded of who He is, of who I am in him, and thus who you are as I encounter you. And then maybe, just maybe, I can experience that encounter with you and with life more from an inner context of divine grace rather than the meanness that comes more naturally to us all.
Relate
How is God challenging you through this week’s reflections to leave? How will you respond to his call?
Respond
Pray
Lord, show me how to keep a true, healthy fast in my life! Deliver me from ruts of self-righteousness and self-absorption. Deliver me from my own meanness of spirit. Enlarge my heart even as I leave food and company to more deeply enter into your company and into the company of your graces.
Practice
Perhaps a more ambitious step. Try forgoing eating out for a week. Take the money you would have spent and give it to someone in need.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
My Soul Is Bereft | Psalm 35:11-14
THURSDAY
Reflection 29 of 35
Reflect
Malicious witnesses rise up;
they ask me of things that I do not know.
They repay me evil for good;
my soul is bereft.
But I, when they were sick—
I wore sackcloth;
I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
as one who laments his mother,
I bowed down in mourning. Psalm 35:11-14 | ESV
Receive
Scot McKnight observes that fasting is one of prayer’s companions. In this psalm, David tells of his response to opponents’ illness and misfortune. He didn’t gloat. He got busy praying for them, joining the prayer with fasting. Too often for us prayer is but a mental activity divorced from the body except to the extent that our lips are involved uttering words. Biblically speaking, prayer was typically a whole body experience. John Goldingay in writing about this psalm observes that David’s sadness was not fully bloomed until the body – in this case, fasting – was involved: “The psalm assumes that merely to feel sadness is not enough; because we are physical creatures and not just minds and spirits, it would be odd not to express sorrow in abstaining from food and then afflicting one’s spirit and one’s self.” Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how we might be transformed in how we internally and externally relate to those who are less than affable towards us (aka our enemies) if we, rather than grinding our teeth and venting our spleen on Facebook about them, fasted over them instead. We often comment on how utterly beyond our reach it is to “love your enemies.” Yes, totally beyond reach. Leaving the table for them, leaving off a meal to pray for them? Very much within our reach. And the unexpected windows of grace and generosity that could open up from within us towards them… The unanticipated vistas of grace and divine generosity it could open up to us…
Relate
What do you think about this notion of fasting over those on your “less than favorite people” list? Who has been “under your skin” recently that you can fast over sometime this week?
Respond
Pray
Lord, cool the embers of suppressed anger in my heart as I feed my enemy when he is hungry and fast for my enemy when she is suffering. Yes, lead me into those rhythms of your divine mercies. Through Jesus.
Practice
You probably knew this one was coming. But here it is. Identify someone who has wronged / annoyed / hurt you. Now skip a meal for them and devote that time to being with the Lord for them. Try it. (And this is crucial: don’t tell them. It just wouldn’t come out right.)
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Attention Getting Devices | Matthew 6:16-18
WEDNESDAY
Reflection 28 of 35
Reflect
When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don’t make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won’t make you a saint. If you ‘go into training’ inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn’t require attention-getting devices. He won’t overlook what you are doing; he’ll reward you well. Matthew 6:16-18 | MSG
Receive
Writing about fasting, Scot McKnight frames it within an “A-B-C” rhythm of (A) a grievous sacred moment and (B) a natural response of fasting (leaving) and then (C) spiritual dividends or results of some sort (joy, life, forgiveness, perspective, strength, etc.). He emphasizes the point that the focus of our spiritual discipline in fasting is movement from A to B, rather than B to C – which is where we typically focus. With so many of these spiritual practices, we engage in them looking for the immediate payoff, reducing them to some sort of supposed manipulative tool that guarantees or leads to some tangibly experienced results. In the case of the Pharisaic practice Jesus comments upon in Matthew 6, the result sought was of dubious spiritual value to begin with. They looked for recognition and applause for their exertions in their practices of devotion and their self-inflicted suffering. Don’t go there, Jesus tells us. Though notice he does affirm the practice of leaving the table (it’s not “if you fast” but “when you fast,” some have observed). It’s just that when we do fast, we need to remember that it’s not a manipulative tool to get some personally desired results. I leave the table because I hear the call through encountering that “grievous sacred moment” so that I can seek his face and process the moment and life. No fanfare. No demands or expectations of some immediate payback. Underneath all healthy rhythms of leaving is the fundamental awareness that in leaving I am doing something within my reach so that over time I can be empowered to go beyond my reach. We will probably not even be aware of how leaving off food will feed us. But feed us it will.
Relate
When have you tried to fast? What called you to it? What happened?
Respond
Pray
Lord, as you see I am ready for it, teach me about healthy, spiritual rhythms of fasting and prayer. Save me from my own compulsion to seek attention getting devices either before you or people. Teach me how to more simply and naturally be with you – with or without food.
Practice
When you sense one of those God moments, one of those “grievous sacred moments,” trying fasting for a morning or an afternoon. Miss a meal, and use that time instead to find an out of the way place to simply be with God.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Out of the Way Places | Mark 1:35-45
TUESDAY
Reflection 27 of 35
Reflect
While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and said, “Everybody’s looking for you.” Jesus said, “Let’s go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I’ve come.” He went to their meeting places all through Galilee, preaching and throwing out the demons. A leper came to him, begging on his knees, “If you want to, you can cleanse me.” Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, “I want to. Be clean.” Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin smooth and healthy. Jesus dismissed him with strict orders: “Say nothing to anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people.” But as soon as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened, spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and came from all over.
Mark 1:35-45 | MSG
Receive
I have found a secret place where I can escape here on the church campus. An enclosed room with no windows, secured behind two locked doors, that very rarely is disturbed by others. I think of it as my prayer and meditation bunker. It’s where I’m memorizing the Gospel of Mark along with sections of John, these days, reciting Galatians or Thessalonians, or whatever. Every day that I’m here, I look for the moment to escape there. I need it like water. It was while memorizing and meditating in Mark in my ‘prayer bunker’ that I really, profoundly noticed Jesus’ rhythm of leaving. After a long night of engagement with a whole town of needy people, Jesus got up while it was still dark and left the house. He knew how to leave. He needed to leave. The deserted places on the empty hills around the Sea of Galilee were his prayer bunker, his fortress. And when Simon and the others tracked him down there with many requests in hand for him to return, his answer floors me. “Well, then let’s go somewhere else, to the other nearby towns and villages so I can preach there too, because that’s why I came.” Jesus knew how to leave. Evidently the Messiah is the only one who doesn’t have a Messiah complex. It was Jesus’ deep need to experience and practice the free movements of coming and going that was behind the intensity in his voice to the leper. “Don’t say a word.” He needed the leper to practice the discipline of silence so he could practice the free moments of engaging and disengaging from people. The leper didn’t succeed any more than we typically do. How hard to leave off speech! We must talk! And so did the leper, forcing Jesus to be more creative in his search for out of the way places. How we need to learn to leave.
Relate
Do you have a “prayer bunker”? What is your favorite out of the way place? (Only share this if you are sure those who hear won’t track you down there!)
Respond
Pray
Jesus, create, or deepen, my hunger and thirst for the unique ways I can experience you in out of the way places. Draw me into silence and solitude so that my sense of your presence can be sharpened, deepened.
Practice
If you don’t have an out of the way place, your own personal “prayer bunker,” prayerfully, thoughtfully find one this week. Be prepared for it to be something creative and unique to the way you’ve been made – or perhaps something that’s been right in front of you the whole time.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Leave | Matthew 4:1-11
MONDAY
Reflection 26 of 35
Reflect
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Matthew 4:1-11 |ESV
Receive
Spiritual life is about recognizing and embracing rhythms. There is a time to gather stones, and a time to cast away stones, the wise Preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us (see Ecclesiastes 3). There’s a time to gather at the table of food and fellowship, and a time to leave it. Jesus was accused of being a glutton, a drunk, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. This means that he ate and enjoyed the company of others (even unsavory others). A lot. But he also fasted for forty days and nights in the solitude and silence of the wilderness where his only company for a month were the wild animals (and, of course, angels, and Satan put in an appearance too). The key to the spiritual disciplines is sensing the season for the alternating movements of various practices, rather than mechanistically engaging in this or that because it’s what I do or what I’m supposed to do or what everyone else says to do. Scot McKnight in his book Fasting (one of the better ones I’ve seen) writes that “fasting is the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life.” This extends to all the practices involved in “leaving.” We leave the table, we walk away from company, we turn off the music because we realize something significant has happened – a “grievous sacred moment.” If we had been with Jesus at his baptism in that river, seeing the Dove and hearing the Voice, we might have handed him a towel and called for a celebratory party when he emerged from the river. The Spirit within him impressed and then impelled him otherwise. This was a “grievous sacred moment” to which the only response for him was to walk away from the river, away from potential company, away from the table, away from conversation and through leaving enter a wilderness that in its barrenness filled his body, soul, and spirit in a way no table ever could. We need to learn to leave.
Relate
Just how intimidated are you at the thought of “leaving” – whether of leaving the table, leaving company, or leaving noise? Or does this sound inviting? Why?
Respond
Pray
Lord, lead me into healthy, natural rhythms of engaging and disengaging from food, fellowship, and sound. Open my eyes and my heart to seek and receive the treasures buried in both fields. Teach me how and when to leave.
Practice
Perhaps rather than encouraging you to fast for a morning I can encourage you to stay tuned for a “grievous sacred moment” this week – and to let yourself respond accordingly by appropriately leaving.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Rest For Those He Loves | Psalm 127:1-3
FRIDAY
Reflection 25 of 35
Reflect
If God doesn’t build the house,
the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
giving rest to those he loves? Psalm 127:1-3 | MSG
Receive
He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
There is a growing chorus of voices connecting with the ancient word about a weekly Sabbath – that it’s not enough just to take occasional “Sabbath” pit stops – five minutes here, maybe six minutes there, possibly 30 seconds over there. We need an actual day. Every week. We need a our own personal Stop Day. Matthew Sleeth calls it his prescription for a healthier, happier, life (and he doesn’t just play a doctor, he is one). And he has the stats to back up the claim. People who regularly stop for a whole day actually live longer – typically ten years longer. But when it comes down to it, it’s not about stopping to live longer or to be more productive or to be more holy because you stop on Saturdays rather than on Sundays (or rather than not at all). It’s about what is the essence of every spiritual practice: allowing ourselves to be in a place – in this case “in a palace in time” – where we can remember once again who He is, who we are, and what life is really all about. Otherwise we forget and are carried away on the rapids of our “clattering commerce.” Which is why we are told to remember the Sabbath. Stopping is actually a huge sign of our trust that it’s really not all about us with our ideas, plans, proposals, and projects after all. It’s a clear indicator we really do believe what today’s reading says: God is the one who is building the house, God is the one who is guarding the city. Or look at it this way. When God created humanity in the Genesis story, the first dawning full day of his life was not a workday. It was a Stop Day. We need to learn to stop.
Relate
Do you have a weekly “Stop Day” in your life? What would it look like if you did?
Respond
Pray
Lord, thank you for inviting me into rest, for inviting me to trust you and stop with you. Forgive me for so often blowing right by you in the forced momentums of my life. Teach me how to stop. Lead me into paths of true Sabbath of the soul. Through Jesus.
Practice
Commit to practicing your own personal Stop Day for the next six weeks – a day to dial down and disengage from normal routines as much as possible. See what happens. Try it.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Unforced Rhythms of Grace | Matthew 11:27-30
THURSDAY
Reflection 24 of 35
Reflect
Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen. Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me —watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:27-30 | MSG
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Subtracting a day of rest each week has had a profound effect on our lives. How could it not? One day a week adds up. Fifty-two days a year times an average life span is equal to more than eleven years. Take away eleven years of anything in a lifetime, and there will be a change. This is a law of the universe: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Subtract over a decade of sleep, work, or education, and the entire character of one’s existence is altered. Multiply eleven years times a third of a billion Americans, and you are looking for a lost continent of time. ~ Matthew Sleeth, 24/6
A lost continent of time. Quite the image! A decade of rest over a lifetime – as opposed to just another decade of more work. Many rabbis of old believed that if everyone kept the Sabbath just one day, the kingdom would come and all would be right with the world. What if Jesus hasn’t returned as many have predicted recently for the simple reason he knows everyone is far too busy to notice if he did come or even look for him? What if he were waiting for us all to simply stop and look up? What if he were waiting for us all to really take him up on his invitation and offer? “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Learn to live freely and lightly.” How foreign this sounds, even to much of Christianity as we know it. It’s antithetical, almost, to Christianity as we practice it – a Christianity that frequently identifies busyness, stress, and weariness with spirituality. Even the day we often view as our true Sabbath (Sunday) is too often its own exhausting whirlwind of activity. Once again, none of this intended as a guilt trip. Just an opportunity to stop, to sit down, and to ask ourselves, to ask God, “Why am I doing what I am doing? What is driving me? What am I after? And what would you have me be and do, God?” Just in that simple Sabbath exercise of stopping to weigh and ponder, we can reap unimagined benefits. And we might even find ourselves resting, if we’re not careful…
Relate
Just how foreign does Jesus’ invitation sound to you? Are you experiencing “unforced rhythms of grace”? How?
Respond
Pray
Lord, where I am not busy enough, spur me to healthy activity; where I am over-committed and over-extended, give me the discernment and discipline to stop and to responsibly step back and away.
Practice
Begin praying over and considering your weekly rhythm and schedule. Pray about what taking a weekly Sabbath “Stop Day” would look like for you – which day would work not to work, what you would do on this day, and what you wouldn’t do.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Rendezvous | Mark 6:30-34
WEDNESDAY
Reflection 23 of 35
Reflect
The apostles then rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught. Jesus said, “Come off by yourselves; let’s take a break and get a little rest.” For there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat.
So they got in the boat and went off to a remote place by themselves. Someone saw them going and the word got around. From the surrounding towns people went out on foot, running, and got there ahead of them. When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke—like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them. Mark 6:30-34 | MSG
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The practice of stopping one day a week – of only going 24/6 – is not new for humanity. It started the day after human history began and it made it through the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It didn’t perish when it was exported to the New World. It survived the American Civil War and was still going strong when women got the vote. It prospered in the Depression, and it blasted off at the dawn of the Space Age. Only in the last few minutes of time has it been misplaced. Where did our day of rest go, and how can we live without it? ~ Matthew Sleeth, 24/6
Constant coming and going. No time even to eat. And we say the Bible isn’t relevant to our times. We know this tune! As Sleeth goes on to observe, “We don’t just work at one thing anymore. We drink coffee and drive cars. We drive cars and talk on the phone. We talk on the phone and shop in the cloud…and fix dinner…and watch the news. In the last twenty years, work is up 15 percent and leisure is down 30 percent, and things are only going to get worse. Yet statistics tell only a part of the story. They don’t account for multi-tasking, nor do they reflect leisure time per family unit. Mom works two jobs, and so do Dad and Sis. Junior is in kindergarten, and he no longer takes a nap after lunch or goes home in the afternoon, as I did. He is in school all day…” As we entered our technological age, there was much speculation about how we’d eventually be struggling to fill our days as our workload shrank due to the efficiency of our machines. But more technology tends to free up time for us to do…more. This isn’t a guilt trip for being busy and productive. Today’s reading is just a reminder that Jesus recognized the need for he and his guys to get away and rest awhile – and also a reminder of just how challenging it can be to do that – persistent crowds of people and priorities tend to find us like heat-seeking missiles. Some calls need to be answered, even as Jesus answers the call here. But often we need to develop greater facility in utilizing call waiting, and intentionally pursue another kind of rendezvous.
Relate
To what extent do you feel you control your schedule – as opposed to your schedule controlling you? When is the last time you had a real day off?
Respond
Pray
Lord, help me develop a sense of when to get away for a rendezvous with rest. Help me to discern when calls need to be answered, and when I simply need to silence the ringer.
Practice
Plan to take a genuine, bona fide day off within the next ten days. No work. No chores. No email (at least not work email). Try being as unproductive as possible for a day – particularly if you are a bit of an overachiever. Read a book just for kicks. Take a leisurely walk/hike outdoors. Watch an old movie or two. Bask in the warmth of the sun (if available). Enjoy a nice conversation with an old friend. And through it all, breathe out thanks to God for the gift of rest as you look for his hand through it all.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Step Out of the Traffic | Psalm 46:8-11
TUESDAY
Reflection 22 of 35
Reflect
Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything.”
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.” Psalm 46:8-11 | MSG
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The seventh day is a palace in time which we build…How else express glory in the presence of eternity, if not by the silence of abstaining from noisy acts? These restrictions (from “noisy acts”) utter songs to those who know how to stay at a palace with a queen. It is one thing to race or be driven by the vicissitudes that menace life, and another thing to stand still and to embrace the presence of an eternal moment….In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
A palace in time that we build. An island of stillness where we reclaim our dignity. In Heschel’s book The Sabbath he details the Greek and Roman response to the Jewish practice of Sabbath – a response that could perhaps best be summarized in one word: absurd. It’s a word echoing with Pharaoh’s ancient accusation: “Lazy, that’s what you are! Lazy!” How inefficient, how irresponsible, how unproductive. Philo, the ancient spokesman of Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria, tried to defend to the practice of Sabbath, of stopping for one day a week, by arguing that it enhanced a man’s productivity for the rest of the week. Heschel counters, “The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life. Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work…The Sabbath is not for the sake of weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.” This is the heart of Psalm 46. We get so caught up in our own superhighway of productive and recreational pursuits (yes, few things can be more exhausting than the vacations we plan or the sports we play!), that we generally manage to only switch gears at best. Stopping and taking in the roadside vista of Sabbath isn’t even part of life’s equation for us anymore, let alone the whole point of the trip. We need to learn how to stop. Again.
Relate
When you are driving, how often do you stop at a roadside vista, get out of the car, and take in the view? How often do you do this in life?
Respond
Pray
Lord, draw me out today from the chaos and ceaseless motion of life, to step out of the traffic and take a long, loving look at you, and to bask in the knowledge that you are God. Show me how to stop.
Practice
Sometime today, step out of the traffic of your routines, no matter how ill you think you can afford to and stop. If possible sit outside. Put away the cell phone. Don’t bring anything to work on either, in your head or in your hand. Stop. For five minutes. Repeat to yourself quietly as you do: “Be still and know that I am God…”
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Stop | Deuteronomy 5:12-15
MONDAY
Reflection 21 of 35
Reflect
No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest. Deuteronomy 5:12-15 | MSG
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The Fourth commandment is the longest and most inclusive of all ten. It’s placement is not by accident. The first three commandments are about God; the last six are about humanity. The fourth acts as a fulcrum. It is a bridge between the two sections. The Sabbath commandment embraces the wealthy, the slave, and the illegal immigrant. It pertains to minimum-age workers and to students. It covers animals. It includes children. The Fourth Commandment applies equally to men and women. It is made to protect those who believe and those who do not. It is to be followed by humanity, and it is observed by God himself. ~ Matthew Sleeth, 24/6
This truly is our Great Omission. We don’t know how to stop, our life like an interminable sermon in which the preacher (you and me) doesn’t know how to make an end, to use a period, and step back from the lectern. Historically, even those who have remembered to stop have tended to make Sabbath the ultimate adventure in missing the point as they force themselves into ritualistic contortions to avoid anything that might qualify as “work.” This has had the unfortunate effect of inoculating the rest of us against the whole idea, relegating “Sabbath” to the scrap yard of formerly good religious ideas. And so we end up affirming the Ten Commandments but dismissing the fourth as now irrelevant or outdated – even as others fixate on it and their required religious prescriptions for it. The reality is that we are 24/6 creatures cramming ourselves into a 24/7 mold of ceaseless, multi-tasking activity. The reality is that all his life Jesus observed a day of rest – even as he redefined and reshaped it for his contemporaries. The reality is Jesus knew how to stop. The reality is that, however we might argue about what day is “Stop Day,” or if it needs to be a whole day, or whatever – we have forgotten how to stop. To walk as Jesus walked is to relearn that skill. It is relearning how to stop.
Relate
What is your take on “Sabbath”? Do you personally know how to stop? What does this look like for you?
Respond
Pray
Lord, give me the grace to stop! Show me how to exit the expressway of my life and truly experience a rest stop with you, where I can breathe in grace. Where I can breathe in you.
Practice
Intentionally walk slower today. Take the time to notice a little more than usual what is passing before you as you walk…
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Large Work, small moves | Matthew 10:38-42
FRIDAY
Reflection 20 of 35
Reflect
If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me. We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing. Matthew 10:38-42 | MSG
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Once more, a quote from Foster: “Self-righteous service is impressed with the ‘big deal.’ It is concerned to make impressive gains on ecclesiastical scorecards. It enjoys serving, especially when the service is titanic. True service finds it impossible to distinguish the small from the large service. Where a difference is noted, the true servant is often drawn into the small service, not out of false modesty, but because he genuinely sees it as the more important task…True service comes from a relationship with the divine Other deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings. Energy is expended, but it is not the frantic energy of the flesh. Thomas Kelly writes, ‘I find He never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.’” Back to the Great Commission and Limited Commission. Perhaps the key here is recognizing and embracing our own personal limited commission (our task) within the grander, overall Great Commission (His task). Big Hairy Audacious Goals can foster frantic activity and obsession with Big Splashes over Big Ideas and Big Impacts. But perhaps the greatest BHAG of all is to find the freedom and flow reflected in Jesus’ instructions to these twelve their first time out. I don’t hear frenzy or a “scramble of panting feverishness” in Jesus’ tone and tenor. Urgency and passion, yes. Frenzy, no. Frenzied people don’t have time to give cups of cold water to little ones. Servants of Christ do. Go, and do likewise.
Relate
How can we keep service from becoming toxic for us and those we serve? What would you say is the key to our service for others not degenerating into an “intolerable scramble of panting feverishness”?
Respond
Pray
Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.
Practice
One practice. Each day. Hopefully in multiple, unanticipated, creative ways. Don’t just choose to serve today. Be a servant today with all of the inconvenience, all the lack of recognition, all the potential humiliation that entails. Let your pride and agendas go. Be. That. Servant.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Choosing to be a Servant | 1 Peter 4:7-11
THURSDAY
Reflection 19 of 35
Reflect
Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes! 1 Peter 4:7-11 | MSG
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A little more from Richard Foster (I’m drawing a lot from him this week. Celebration of Discipline is most definitely a recommended read!): “A natural and understandable hesitancy accompanies any serious discussion of service. The hesitancy is prudent since it is wise to count the cost before plunging headlong into any Discipline. We experience a fear that comes out something like this: ‘If I do that, people will take advantage of me; they will walk all over me.’ Right here we must see the difference between choosing to serve and choosing to be a servant. When we choose to serve, we are still in charge. We decide whom we will serve and when we will serve. And if we are in charge, we will worry a great deal about anyone stepping on us…But when we choose to be a servant, we give up the right to be in charge. There is great freedom in this. If we voluntarily choose to be taken advantage of, then we cannot be manipulated. When we choose to be a servant, we surrender the right to decide who and when we will serve. We become available and vulnerable.” Okay. Let me be honest. This doesn’t just stretch me. This kills me. I want to serve, but I want it to be on my terms and conditions. Period. Control dies hard with us. Yes, we need to be discerning about when we are not really serving others well when we just give them whatever they ask for when they ask for it. Yes, we all need to learn the lessons of “no” and “wait.” Yes, we need to serve responsibly. But how easy it is for our desire to control to hide in these spaces too! What Peter describes in today’s text seems to be an exuberant fusing of such responsible boundary seeking within an overall posture of zestful outpouring of whatever God has placed within us as servants first to him and then to others – because whatever we have is not ours, and because we know he will make more.
Relate
Do you agree with the distinction made between choosing to serve and choosing to be a servant? Why or why not? What does “serving responsibly” look like for you?
Respond
Pray
Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.
Practice
One practice. Each day. Hopefully in multiple, unanticipated, creative ways. Don’t just choose to serve today. Be a servant today with all of the inconvenience, all the lack of recognition, all the potential humiliation that entails. Let your pride and agendas go. Be. That. Servant.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Fresh Zest | Titus 3:9-14
WEDNESDAY
Reflection 18 of 35
Reflect
Stay away from mindless, pointless, quarreling over genealogies and fine print in the law code. That gets you nowhere. Warn a quarrelsome person once or twice, but then be done with him. It’s obvious that such a person is out of line, rebellious against God. By persisting in divisiveness he cuts himself off. As soon as I send either Artemas or Tychicus to you, come immediately and meet me in Nicopolis. I’ve decided to spend the winter there. Give Zenas the lawyer and Apollos a hearty send-off. Take good care of them. Our people have to learn to be diligent in their work so that all necessities are met (especially among the needy) and they don’t end up with nothing to show for their lives.
Titus 3:9-14 | MSG
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“Condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow-creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do their lowest offices of mankind.” ~ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
What a marked contrast to the closed vault of “mindless, pointless, quarreling over genealogies and fine print in the law code.” And what a marked contrast in this text between that closed, inwardly directed vault of divisiveness in the first part and the exuberant out flowing of life in the meeting, spending, hearty send offs, and diligent work of the latter part. How long it can take us to finally choose and settle into the latter part! As Foster observes in his Celebration of Discipline, when we choose to go and be servants, the grace of humility “will slip in upon us unaware. Though we do not sense its presence, we are aware of a fresh zest and exhilaration with living. We wonder at the new sense of confidence that marks our activities. Although the demands of life are as great as ever, we live in a new sense of unhurried peace…we are aware of a deeper love and joy in God. Our days are punctuated with spontaneous breathings of praise and adoration. Joyous hidden service is an acted prayer of thanksgiving. We seem to be directed by a new control Center – and so we are.” By choosing to go and be servants, we intentionally choose to move away from divisiveness (who has the time? and what is there for us to fight over again?) and into lives that will have much to show for them in the faces of those holding up the garments of grace we knitted for them with love as our only signature. What a way to go.
Relate
Do you see any ways in which you are still “locked in a vault of divisiveness”? (You may need to ask someone else to answer this for you!) Overall, does “fresh zest” characterize your life and walk with God? Why or why not?
Respond
Pray
Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.
Practice
One practice. Each day. Hopefully in multiple, unanticipated, creative ways. Don’t just choose to serve today. Be a servant today with all of the inconvenience, all the lack of recognition, all the potential humiliation that entails. Let your pride and agendas go. Be. That. Servant.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
You ARE the Equipment | Matthew 10:5-10
TUESDAY
Reflection 17 of 35
Reflect
Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge:
“Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously. Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.” Matthew 10:5-10 | MSG
Receive
Isn’t it curious that we have much more detailed instructions for what we know as the “Limited Commission” that we assume no longer applies to us than we do for the “Great Commission” which we clearly believe does apply to us? Do we have such detailed instructions about this first sending out of the twelve two by two to their Jewish neighbors because these instructions are in fact relevant to us as we set out on the larger, more adventurous, more comprehensive quest to be neighbors to all of humanity? In our western culture we put such stock in formal education and training, in books and workshops, in lectures and copious note taking. We can spend half our lifetime (and all our income) in training before we ever get around to doing, or going, anywhere. Jesus called these twelve guys to be with him. Daily. For maybe six months. They followed him around everywhere. They heard what he said. They saw what he did and how he did it. And then, without so much as one weekend seminar formally entitled, “How to Have Your Own Successful Limited Commission” he told them, “Okay. Your turn. Go.” And rather than putting things into their hands to take, he was like an officer aboard the sinking Titanic removing things from their hands. “Get rid of this. No, are you crazy? You don’t need that. There’s no room for this. Toss that bag, get rid of that suitcase.” No wallet. No cash. No cards. No suitcase. No volumes. No podcasts. No equipment. Because you – You. Are. The. Equipment. Perhaps I can be bold enough to suggest that the point here is not that we become legalistic about packing suitcases for mission trips, but rather that we come face to face with this freeing truth: it’s who you are – or perhaps better, who you are becoming in Christ, that is most needed in this world, not your finely tuned skill set or credentialed achievements. It’s not what we bring, it’s who we are. It is in being that we can finally get going.
Relate
In going and serving, what does it mean for you to “travel light”? What baggage do you need to drop?
Respond
Pray
Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.
Practice
One practice. Each day. Hopefully in multiple, unanticipated, creative ways. Don’t just choose to serve today. Be a servant today with all of the inconvenience, all the lack of recognition, all the potential humiliation that entails. Let your pride and agendas go. Be. That. Servant.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Go | Matthew 28:16-20
MONDAY
Reflection 16 of 35
Reflect
Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20 | MSG
Receive
“More than any other single way, the grace of humility is worked into our lives through the discipline of service. Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it, the more distant it becomes…But there is something we can do. We need not go through life faintly hoping that someday humility may fall on our heads. Of all the classical Spiritual Disciplines, service is the most conducive to the growth of humility.” ~ Richard Foster, Celebration of the Disciplines
It’s easy to read what we call the “Great Commission” and be stirred to such a fever pitch of activity as we strive to become “saviors” of the world. Exercises in missing the point. Exercises in which our ego, pride, and sense of self-importance find a new place to nestle and grow. But to truly embrace the “Great Commission” is to embrace what is the only sure path to the death of ourselves, our pride, and our egotistic, self-pandering and self-promoting obsession with, well, ourselves. Humility is beyond our reach. Going out into this world with a basin and a towel to wash some dirty feet, with a cup of cold water for some thirsty soul in a hidden place, with a listening presence to give to someone unseen, with a wordless groaning of a prayer for someone that prayer has forsaken – this is within our reach. To choose to be a servant is within our reach. And the resulting training given and received is where we are truly changed into disciples of Jesus. It’s the path along which the Great Commission is truly fulfilled.
Relate
What scares you most about the thought of serving others – or even more, of being a servant to others? Why?
Respond
Pray
We’re going to make this simple each day of this week. One prayer. Each day. “Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.”
Practice
We’re going to keep this simple this week too. One practice. Each day. Hopefully in multiple, unanticipated, creative ways. Don’t just choose to serve today. Be a servant today with all of the inconvenience, all the lack of recognition, all the potential humiliation that entails. Let your pride and agendas go. Be. That. Servant.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Get the Word Out | 1 Timothy 4:11-16
FRIDAY
Reflection 15 of 35
Reflect
Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use. Cultivate these things. Immerse yourself in them. The people will all see you mature right before their eyes! Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don’t be diverted. Just keep at it. Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation. 1 Timothy 4:11-16 | MSG
Receive
Getting the word out means more than handing out Bible tracts, loud street preaching or evangelistic sales pitches. It’s a way of life in which our way of life becomes the lectern and pulpit from which all around us hear it, see it. Timothy was evidently young and a bit vulnerable to being intimidated by older, smarter, self-confident types. Paul doesn’t counsel him to challenge such to a stare down. “Teach them with your life,” he says. Loud lessons from quiet living in a demeanor of love, faith, and integrity. Keep reading, he says, keep providing humble counsel, keep sharing what you know in organic, healthy ways. Keep engaging the gifts within you that are unleashed through the reading, through the community, through your quietly unfolding character. In the words of James from yesterday’s reflection, “In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” This is the ultimate harvest reaped from a lifetime of sowing seeds of hearing and quietly responding to His Voice. People often marvel at my ability to quote, with flair, an entire book of the Bible. I’m really not just being self-deprecating – I mean, I do know how to take a compliment, I do. But parrots can quote books of the Bible. To behold a life genuinely landscaped by God through painstaking and careful hearing of the Word through a lifetime? Now there’s something to marvel at.
Relate
If you look at your devotional life, your life and experience in the Word, as a garden, how well landscaped are you? What are the weeds that need to be cleared, the hard pan that needs to be dug up, the dry spots that need to be watered?
Respond
Pray
Lord, dig ears into my head, landscape me with your Word. Shape my life into a salvation garden that feeds more people in more ways that I could ever anticipate or imagine. Let my manner, my way of life be your pulpit, your lectern, from which you teach others your grace and truth. Through Jesus.
Practice
“Give attention to reading.” Carve out a daily niche for reading that draws you deeper into a spiritual walk and encounter with God’s breath. Fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes at midday, thirty minutes at night may be a place to start. Try it for five days. See what happens.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
Act on What You Hear! | James 1:19-25
THURSDAY
Reflection 14 of 35
Reflect
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. James 1:19-25 | MSG
Receive
James’ passion is contagious – if not a bit overwhelming at times. The people of Israel have frequently been described as “people of the book.” Preserving the written law of Moses and compiling what we now know as the Bible (at least most of it) has been at the center of their existence as a people. As Paul testifies, “What is the advantage of being a Jew? Much in every way. First of all, they were entrusted with the very words of God” (Romans 3:1-2). It’s as if James, the great Jewish apostle of the Jewish church in Jewish Jerusalem, holding up the Torah scroll before his Jewish congregants, asks them what use is it to stand as it is opened, to touch it with the fringe of their robes, to say a solemn “amen” as it is chanted – if they never actually do anything with it? God is not honored by a respectful treatment of a scroll or book; he is blessed by our hearing and responding to its contents. How much easier to respectfully dust the cover, to respectfully bow at its reading, and then to put it back in its place as we then wipe our mouths and get back to our business? How easy to limit our involvement with the Book to using it as fodder for small group discussions that are left to play out in the confines of our living rooms, or as material for a weekly religious address we call a sermon? James would have none of it, would have none of us as such “distracted scatterbrains.” To respect the Bible is to hear it. To hear is to respond. To respond is to be changed – and to change the world.
Relate
How is your hearing when it comes to Bible study? How readily can you apply the truths you see in practical ways?
Respond
Pray
Lord, let me not fear to look in the mirror of you, of your Word and words. Deliver me from my scatterbrain ways of “hearing” but then walking away. Keep me from merely respecting a book. Incline my ears to hear, my eyes to see, my heart to respond to your Voice. Through Jesus.
Practice
Each time you spend time reading the Bible this week, before closing that cover and putting it back on the shelf, take a moment. Pause. Ponder. And whether you actually write it down or not, listen for one practical way of putting what you just heard into action. Then keep listening for further instructions.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
God-breathed | 2 Timothy 3:16-17
WEDNESDAY
Reflection 13 of 35
Reflect
Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother’s milk! There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 | MSG
Receive
Hearing and responding to the One who is the living Word does not banish the Book to irrelevance. It enhances and underlines it’s meaning and significance. We no longer study a book trying to figure everything out or to learn and master all the rules. We read and study, reflect and meditate to know Him, to be with Him, to find ourselves in Him. Timothy had “taken in the sacred Scriptures with his mother’s milk” – which tells us something of how we most effective absorb them: relationally. In our individualistic culture, we often would like to imagine that we can retreat to our own little private cubicle and figure out the Bible, Christ and God (as well as the mark of the Beast) all on our own (with the help of a few commentaries). But the Bible is a community library meant to be heard in community – in the community of the home, the small group, the congregation. “Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear,” says the Revelator (Revelation 1:3). To read Scripture from such a vantage point is to encounter the divine breath. It is to have our hearts inflamed, our spirits quickened, our lives empowered. Truth is revealed, our darkness exposed to light, our feet and hands fitted for service, our very being shaped and unleashed for God, for Life. In a word, we are brought into salvation – a healed, whole and upright stand before God in this world. Without this vantage point, the Bible becomes just another book – or worse, actually. It becomes not an occasion for encountering the divine breath of God, but only the stale, bad breath of a religious spirit that leads us nowhere.
Relate
What has the Bible meant to you? What has been your greatest challenge in getting into it?
Respond
Pray
Lord, walk with me as you did with the two on that Emmaus road. Let me encounter your divine breath in the pages of the Book, let my heart burn within me – a fire that purges me of hatred, indifference and isolation and that, in consuming me, leaves me fully engaged with you and with your world.
Practice
If you are not in the habit of daily reading in the Bible, try starting one. Read. Today. One chapter (if you don’t know where, try the Gospel of Mark). Read aloud. Then sit quietly with it. Write what you see.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
In the Beginning was the Word | John 1:1-3
TUESDAY
Reflection 12 of 35
Reflect
The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. John 1:1-3 | MSG
Receive
Sometimes we can start viewing the community library we know as the “Bible” as a fourth member of the Trinity. Sometimes people go so far as to equate the Bible with the Holy Spirit. But before a word was written of what we now know as the Bible, the Word was. Personal. Divine. Creative. Light. The Word is more than words on any page of any book or books. The Word spoke all that we know and are into existence. The Word became fully human and “moved into the neighborhood.” All written words in the collection we know as the Bible only point to the Living One who is the Final Word, the Alpha and Omega, the Word who begins all, completes all, fills all. To hear is more than to study books of the Bible. It’s more than memorizing and reciting verses. To hear is to live in a responsive posture towards Christ, the Living Word, the centering Truth, the organizing Principle of all reality. “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). This is the greatest irony. Getting mired in debates, theologies and speculations in the written word and missing the Living Word in the process. It can be so much easier to relate to and attempt mastery of a book with fixed words in black and white than it is to relate to the Living and Active Word that moves, that is unpredictable, uncontainable, untraceable. It may be quite a stretch for us, but an elemental practice for spiritual life is to begin thinking of hearing in terms not primarily of reading and studying written words but of presence and response to the One who is the Word.
Relate
What can we do to help ensure Bible study leads to the Word who is Jesus rather than detouring us into religious dead ends?
Respond
Pray
Living Word, lead me into quiet rhythms of communing with you, hearing you, moving with you – and use any and all time in Scripture to bring me into such responsive rhythms.
Practice
Quietly read aloud the words of John 1:1-18. Soak in them. Invite the Living Word.
For all of this week’s resources for this new series on Spiritual Disciplines including this week’s DG video, check out the Vineyard website.
REFLECT | RECEIVE | RELATE | RESPOND 