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“Use equipment at your own risk. At the first sign of discomfort cease using equipment.” So say the signs in the exercise rooms of hotels and Condos across the country. The problem with that is, on days I am going to exercise, when the alarm clock goes off an hour early I have the first signs of discomfort.…

SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE Twenty-five-hundred athletes gathered to compete for gold, silver and bronze medals at the winter Olympics in Turin, Italy in 2006. Their coaches, trainers, and Olympic officials will work 24-hour days to look after almost every physical and mental needs those athletes have. A host…

Discipline is training that corrects and perfects our mental faculties or molds our oral character. Discipline is control gained by enforeced obedience. It is the deliberate cultivation of inner order. Source: So, You Want To Be Like Chrst - Swindoll , Page 21

Christian meditation has nothing to do with emptying our minds. Christian meditation engages every part of us-our mind, our emotions, our imagination, our creativity and, supremely, our will. As Archbishop Anthony Bloom puts it, ‘Meditation is a piece of straight thinking under God’s guidance.’ Source:…

ACTIVITY One-fourth of Americans do not exercise at all during the course of a week according to a new study released by the Center For Disease Control. The research conducted in the year 2000 is based on interviews with 32,000 people, which gauged the respondent’s work and leisure activities. The study…

"Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried." G.K Chesterton Source: Willard, Dallas: The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 1, 1988.

The secret of the easy yoke is simple, actually. It is the intelligent, informed, unyielding resolve to live as Jesus lived in all aspects of his life, not just in the moment of specific choice or action. Source: Willard, Dallas; The Spirit of the Disciplines, p.10, 1988.

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the "second mile", turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully - while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does. This is like the aspiring young baseball players mentioned earlier. It's…

And in this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life - adopting his overall life-style. Following "in his steps" cannot be equated with behaving as he did when he was "on the spot." To live as Christ lived is to live as he did all his…

A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is no more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living. Source: Willard, Dallas The Spirit of the Disciplines,…

Think of certain young people who idolize an outstanding baseball player. They want nothing so much as to pitch or run or hit as well as their idol. So what do they do? When they are playing in a baseball game, they all try to behave exactly as their favorite baseball star does. The star is well known…

The disciplines for the spiritual life, rightly understood, are time-tested activities consciously undertaken by us as new men or women to allow our spirit ever-increasing sway over our embodied selves. They help by assisting the ways of God's Kingdom to take the place of the habits of sin embedded in…

The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions.…

Certainly we cannot reasonably hope to do his deeds without adopting his form of life. And we cannot adopt his form of life without engaging in his disciplines - maybe even more than he did and surely adding others demanded by our much more troubled condition. Source: Willard, Dallas; The Spirit of the…

From the view point of the Christian religion, of course, the primary struggle within human nature first appears as the struggle between the individual and God. This makes perfect sense once we understand human nature in relation to the purpose for us in Creation, as explained earlier. We were made able…

Nicolas Berdyaev describes the flesh with great accuracy: This lower nature, when it occupies its proper place in the hierarchy of the universe, is not in itself evil, for it belongs to the divine world. It is only when it usurps the place of something higher that it become untrue to itself and an evil.…

The purpose of life is to bring honor to God, to know, love, and obey Him, to become like Him, and to live for His purposes in this world as I prepare to live in the next one. A life that is intentionally lived for this purpose will be characterized by certain attitudes and actions. for one thing, if…

Salvation as conceived today is far removed from what it was in the beginnings of Christianity and only by correcting it can God's grace in salvation be returned to the concrete, embodied existence of our human personalities walking with Jesus in his easy yoke. Once salvation is relegated to mere forgiveness…