Teachings,+Application+of+Christianity

This information is taken from the book, "The Culturally Savvy Christian" by Dick Staub who also wrote "Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters."


 * The Mind of Christ: Jesus' Spiritual Practices**

Because we have been raised in an undisciplined culture that makes few intellectual or spiritual demands on us, we need to be prepared for the challenge and hard work of renewal. While each of the disciplines described in this section is rewarding, they are more demanding then watching TV, listening to music, or playing an electronic game. Going deeper in God requires understanding how the shallow's of today's culture have conditioned us toward superficial living. Society's passionate quest for self-fulfullment has led many of us to an unrewarding personal emptiness. In the age of "me," we have lived as if our self is the arbiter of all things. We have rejected "taking up a cross," choosing instead to do what feels good. Wwe have recoiled at the idea of following anyone else, believing that the highest virtue is to seek our own way. Now Jesus is giving us an opportunity to return to the age of God by living a new kind of life.

Digging the deeper well requires learning the disciplines of Jesus. The Apostle Paul compared the practices leading to spiritual maturity to those of an athlete in training who exercises each day to enhance skills and strengthen endurance. Practicing these disciplines in everyday life produces spiritual health and maturity by calibrating our daily life on earth to the will and perspective of the eternal God. They are the practical way to fulfill the prayer Jesus taught us: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."


 * Four Private Disciplines**

Jesus practiced four disciplines in his private life: prayer, study, meditation, and fasting. //Prayer[/b] takes us out of this world and puts us in God's world, through which we become equipped to be put back in this world for useful service. Jesus awoke early in the morning and prayed. It is impossible to replace the voice of culture with God's voice unless you are actively engaged in prayer, which is why the Apostle Paul said we should "pray without ceasing."

Jesus [i]studied// the Scriptures, and at the age of twelve, he stunned the rabbis of the Temple in Jerusalem with his knowledge and insight into the Scriptures. Every Jewish child understood that Scripture was as essential as food, milk, and meat to sustain life. Only when our minds are saturated with the words of God can we avoid conformity with the words and images of our culture. To study means we understand Scripture by asking what the writer is saying, interpret it by asking what the author means, evaluate it by asking whether it rings true, and apply it by asking how it should change our life. We understand that study is not an academic exercise to make us smarter but a path to deeper union with God.

Our study is deepened by //meditation//, the practice of quiet, focused concentration on God. Meditation centers our life in the eternal, now. In today's cacaphonous and frantic world, few practices are more difficult to maintain or more necessary for our spiritual health and well-being than mind-renewing meditation. "On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works I will meditate" (Psalm145:5). The Psalms were Jesus' prayer book, and they are full of admonitions to meditate.

Jesus //fasted//, abstaining from food, for the spiritual purpose of hearing God more clearly. Spiritual men and women throughout history have fasted, including a veritable who's who from the Bible: David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Paul. Fasting allows us to concentrate on God and on the spiritual over the physical. Fasting reveals what controls us and focuses our heart and mind to ensure that God is of central importance. We think nothing of concuming a steady diet of popular culture each day. Do we spend an equal or greater amount of time devoted to daily prayer, study, and meditation? Do we set aside time for fasting on a regular basis? Aspiring to align our mind with the mind of Christ and becoming fully human require that we follow these practices of Jesus.


 * Four Public Disciplines**

Jesus also practiced four public disciplines: simplicity, solitude, submission, and service. By //public disciplines//, I simply mean that they can be observed by others.

//Simplicity// means that our inner life is consistent with our outer life, our God-shaped vacuum is filled, and we are no longer dependent on or possessed by outward things. Our cunsumeristic age is the enemy of simplicity, and so, like fasting, simplicity has become countercultural. Jesus taught that simplicity flow's from a life that seeks God's kingdom first. Psychologists talk about cognitive dissonance, the difference between what we believe and how we behave. In contrast, simplicity flows from a renewed mind that seeks to harmonize what we know to be God's will with our daily behavior.

Jesus practiced //solitude//, or restorative aloneness, because he knew that his active public life required a concentration on God's presence that is best achieved in time of quietness and aloneness. "Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed." (Mark 1:35). How can we find the mind of Christ if our entire day is spent with a cacaphony of electronic interventions and human demands?

The renewed mind is a mind that has been brought into //submission// to God. Paul urges us to let the mind of Christ dwell in us and reminds us that Jesus, "though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). In our culture dominated by power, Jesus' timely message is this: the greatest power is demonstrated by those restrain themselves from wielding it and who, when called upon to do so, will even yield it.

The renewed mind thinks of //serving// instead of being served, and this too reflects the mind of Christ. "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). On the evening before his crucifixion, Jesus did not ask the disciples to attend to his needs; he washed their feet, modeling servanthood to the very end. The Apostle Paul said, "Let no one think more highly of themselves than they should" (Romans 12:3) and referred to the humility of Christ's mind.


 * Four Communal Disciplines**

Jesus practiced four disciplines cummunally: confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. The renewed mind does not rationalize sin, but //confesses// it. The New Testament word for "confess" comes from the Greek word //homologeo//, which means "to agree, assent, or reach the same idea." Confession is only possible when our mind recognizes the dissonance between our behavior and God's expectations. A mind filled with the values of a morally relativistic age won't recognize the need to confess because it cannot even recohnize sin when it occurs. Confessing our sin requires as elevated awareness of God's standards and expectations, agreeing with God when we have sinned, and confessing to others when we sin against them. Jesus said to the disciples, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them" (John 20:23); James urged Jesus' followers to "confess your sins to one another" (James 5:16); and John reminded us that "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

//Worship// is the practice of adoring, reverencing, and honoring. Conforming to the values of this world, today's mind is bound to accept some level of self-worship as normal. The renewed mind knows that God is central and worships God as a way of life, recognizing that worship is, as Wheaton Conservatory's Harold Best said, "A continuous outpouring in response to a continuously outpouring God." A. W. Tozer said, "No religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God." As our mind is renewed with clearer images of God, our worship reflects it.

A Christian with a renewed mind seeks //guidance// in making decisions and determining a course of action by reading Scripture, praying, and seeking the counsel of trustworthy brothers and sisters in community, instead of relying solely on his or her own understanding.

Renewing the mind also involves //celebration// - observing special festivities to mark significant events. A Christian observes the Eucharist because it is a way of remembering and focusing the mind: "As often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26). The deeper spiritual way of Jesus is a celebratory one, and our life in community should reflect God's peace, joy, and love as a way of life.

Privately, publicly, and communally, we practice the disciplines of Jesus to renew our minds, and as our minds are refreshed and restored, we find ourselves resisting the negative force of conformity to the world while experiencng the joy that comes through knowing and doing God's will.

Read over this lesson and begin to implement the spiritual disciplines in your life.