The practice of spiritual disciplines is not rooted in the twelve identified by Richard Foster in the 1970’s. The disciplines are found in the earliest practices of the Church. Writing as a Methodist, they are integral to the formation of our denomination. John Wesley started the Methodist movement in the seventeen hundreds in the hopes of deepening people’s relationships with God through what he described as the “Means of grace.” It began as small class groups made up of people “who had a desire to flee the wrath to come.” Members of the groups were expected to follow, what we still call today, the General Rules. Three basic expectations: 1) Do no harm, 2) Do all the good you can, and 3) Attend to the ordinances of God. This third rule has come to be understood as, “Participating in the means of grace.” For Wesley, the means of grace were the spiritual disciplines, which when employed, allowed us to receive God’s preventing, justifying, and sanctifying grace. They included the public worship of God, the ministry of the Word (hearing or reading sermons), the Supper of the Lord (Holy Communion), corporate and private prayer, searching the scriptures (personal reading of the Bible) and fasting.
For Wesley, the public worship of God began with Christ followers coming together in recognition that being a Christian is never done in isolation. He gathered the people called Methodist into various sized groups to help them to develop the spiritual discipline necessary to deepen their relationships with God. In the smallest groups, called bands, they would confess their sins to each other, give an accounting of their works of piety and mercy, and pray together. He would then send them to the Anglican Church on Sundays for worship. Public worship is where we corporately practice all means of grace: baptism, corporate confession, Holy Communion, prayer, exposition on the scriptures, and Christian conferencing. It is where we are reminded that salvation is exclusively a work of the grace of God and that there is nothing we can do to be saved. In worship, God reminds us that we are never alone in this journey of salvation; both He and the Body of Christ are with us always.
He understood that the ministry of the Word that happens in worship must be supplemented with personally reading and studying. As an educated man, he began his practice of the means of grace with pouring over scripture and others’ understanding of scripture. He sought to inform and evaluate his personal interpretations, with the learned opinions of those who had come before him. He believed that exposing ourselves to other Christian understandings of the Scriptures deepens our own. Sometimes that exposure affirms our beliefs but other times it challenges them and forces us to reconsider those beliefs. When challenged, we can choose to increase our understanding as we defend them or we can decide to change them. This practice protects us from becoming deluded into thinking we have the only correct understanding. Wesley saw the ministry of the Word as both a navigation and course correcting tool on our Christian journey.
We can never fully understand the holy mysteries of Holy Communion and Baptism. They are exclusively a work of God by which we receive His grace. Baptism is the means of grace that initiates us into God’s holy covenant. We experience it only once as the initial imparting of God’s justifying grace. Holy Communion, however, is our continual experience of the presence of God and His sanctifying grace. Wesley called us to receive the Lord’s Supper as often as we can as a means of growing in sanctifying and being made perfect in love.
Prayer, both corporate and private, begins with us thinking about, speaking and listening to our loving God. We might add that it can include suffering for and acting on behalf of Him. It is something that we are to do continually as commanded by the Apostle Paul as the practice that will fill our souls with love. In prayer, we cry out to God from our heartache, from our joy, from our fear, from our need, from our celebration and from every other situation we may face in life. To know God on the deepest levels, we must have a continual habit of prayer.
Searching the scriptures for Wesley is not a practice of casually picking up the Bible to read at our convenience. It is a purposeful act of setting aside time each day, even twice a day, to read from both the Old and New Testaments. It should be undertaken from a prayerful heart with a primary goal of coming to a deeper understanding of who God is and how He loves. The secondary goal is to develop a basic understanding of foundational Christian doctrines like Original Sin, Salvation by Faith Alone, or the New Birth. In searching the scriptures we should also find a mirror by which we can do self reflection to better understand the condition of our own hearts and the manner in which we live our Christian lives.
Fasting was something that Wesley practiced from the very beginning of the Holy Club. The members fasted each Wednesday and Friday and gave the money saved from missing meals to the needy. He believed fasting simplified our lives and freed up monetary resources for ministry. Even more so it was a practice by which we could place our full trust and dependence on our loving God who promised to meet our every need. Through it we receive God’s grace and the assurance that He will do what He promised in Scripture. Furthermore, fasting is a practice that maintains our Christian connection with the poor and hungry; when we feel hunger, we are reminded that we are called to minister to them.
These were the spiritual disciplines that Wesley believed were the means for every Christian to receive the preventing, justifying and sanctifying grace of God. Through them God transforms our hearts, but we must be cautious in our practice to ensure that these means do not become the end. Spiritual disciplines must be for the purpose of seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord rather than merely checking items off a “To Do” list. It is not just the disciplined work, it is the heart motivation behind the work. It is not either/or, it is both/and. The work of discipline prepares the heart to be transformed by God. We study the scriptures and through it God transforms our hearts. Attending to the means of grace gives us a better understanding of God and His love, which enables us to further surrender to His will for our lives. To practice spiritual disciplines without the heart piece is to fulfill Wesley’s prophetic concern for the people called Methodist having the form of religion without the power.”
Our goal in this Lenten Devotional is to connect with the power through these forms of religion. As we draw nearer to God and better understand His love, our hearts cannot help but be transformed. Each day will include reading a daily scripture verse and devotion, saying a prayer, listening to a song, and participating in one spiritual discipline apart from our devotional time. Our hope is for the finish line to reveal how our lives have been informed and influenced by these practices in a way that makes it easy for those who observe our lives to believe in the transforming power of The Christ.
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