{"id":7713,"date":"2025-07-21T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/satchurch.lv\/?p=7713"},"modified":"2013-06-30T00:58:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T21:58:37","slug":"spiritual-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/spiritual-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"Greetings to you, dear friends! Grace and peace to you from Father God and our Lord Jesus Christ! Today we’ll finish our discourse on the importance of spiritual discipline in the life of a believer.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThere are many verses in the Bible that describe spiritual discipline in the lives of Jesus and His apostles. They were all written for us to help us become successful in our ministry just as the Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples were successful. We discussed the spiritual habits of Jesus, particularly\u00a0fasting<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0solitude<\/span>,\u00a0vigilance<\/span>,\u00a0prayer,<\/span>\u00a0intense study of God\u2019s Word<\/span>,meditation on the Word of God<\/span>\u00a0and His ways.<\/span><\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nToday too many Christians lack discipline, so they are not many spiritual fruit and expressions of spiritual authority. The paradox is that most Christians, who discipline themselves in other areas of their life in order to be successful \u2013 like job or carrier, do not believe they need to be disciplined in the area of godliness. We are talking about good Christians who are faithful members of the Church of the Living God. These are people who love God\u2019s Word and often are very enthusiastic about the work of God. But because of the lack of discipline they do not reach their potential in God\u2019s Kingdom.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt is not enough to have breadth in God; it is important also that we have depth. If you do not possess strong spiritual habits in the area of fellowship with God, then it means you lack spiritual discipline. Superficial attitude towards life is the curse of our time. The doctrine of immediate satisfaction is one of the main spiritual problems of our generation. If you do not pay attention to this problem in the church, then the church can lose her power and influence in the world. When we underestimate spiritual discipline and its different facets mentioned above, we are in great danger. By neglecting spiritual discipline we are not able to produce or bring to God any commendable fruit.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn conclusion of this series I want to show you that all aspects of spiritual discipline can be divided into two categories:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI\u00a0<\/strong>Spiritual disciplines that are connected to abstaining from something:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\na.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abstaining from food for the sake of godliness \u2013 fasting.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nb.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abstaining from social interaction for the sake of godliness \u2013 solitude.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nc.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abstaining from sleep for the sake of godliness \u2013 night vigilance.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nd.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Abstaining from luxury for the sake of godliness \u2014 sacrificial living.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThrough these types of discipline we exercise our spiritual muscles in order to overcome our flesh and its desires. It is like weightlifting. By itself it may look like something silly, but it prepares a person for serious physical trials in the future. In the same way, the things we abstain from are not evil, but our abstinence from them is for the sake of godliness in order to prepare ourselves for real difficulties that we may face in the future.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThese types of discipline give us deep understanding of the struggle that goes on inside of us, which is the struggle between flesh and spirit. There are some crucial lessons we are able to learn only through practising of these spiritual disciplines and in no other way. I think it will be interesting for you to find out what tricks your flesh is ready to play after you say \u2018no\u2019 to it. The spiritual practices above will help you to know how strong the hold of the flesh is over you.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe second category of spiritual discipline is:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nII\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Disciplines that involve us in certain activities.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\na.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prayer.<\/strong>\r\nYou need to set apart some time for the purpose of prayer and fellowship with God.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nb.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Reading and studying of the Bible.<\/strong>\r\nIn order to change you need not only to read but you also need to study the Bible; you need to become a student of the Word.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nc.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Meditation on the Word.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nd.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Witnessing.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\ne.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Worship.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt is a spiritual direction that requires of us to continually thank and praise God and it also takes some time and effort.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nf.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Christian fellowship.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt requires having the right people around to encourage the fellowship and growth in God.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI hope this give you something to think and meditate upon today and the grounds to evaluate your life. Learn to love these spiritual disciplines and start applying them in your life on a continual basis, – and your life will change drastically and you will be able to truly effective in God\u2019s Kingdom!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMay God bless you today abundantly!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nPastor Rufus Ajiboye","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The paradox is that most Christians, who discipline themselves in other areas of their life in order to be successful \u2013 like job or carrier, do not believe they need to be disciplined in the area of godliness. We are talking about good Christians who are faithful members of the Church of the Living God. These are people who love God\u2019s Word and often are very enthusiastic about the work of God. But because of the lack of discipline they do not reach their potential in God\u2019s Kingdom.","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-word"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":12,"label":"Daily Word"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/pexels-photo-949131-1024x682.jpeg",1024,682,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Pastor Rufus Ajiboye","author_link":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/author\/author-en\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":12,"name":"Daily Word","slug":"daily-word","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":12,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Daily word for spiritual strength","parent":0,"count":650,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","cat_ID":12,"category_count":650,"category_description":"Daily word for spiritual strength","cat_name":"Daily Word","category_nicename":"daily-word","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40061,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions\/40061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/satchurch.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}