Encouraging - Spirtual Discipline

Discipline without direction is drudgery. But the Spiritual Disciplines are never drudgery as long as we practice them with the goal of Godliness in mind. If your picture of a disciplined Christian is one of a grim, tight-lipped, joyless half-robot, then you’ve missed the point. Jesus was the most disciplined Man who ever lived and yet the most joyful and passionately alive. He is our Example of discipline.

Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO: 1991), 24.

Encouraging - Catalysts for Change

Actually, God uses three primary catalysts for changing us and conforming us to Christlikeness, but only one is largely under our control. One catalyst the Lord uses to change is people….Another change agent God uses in our lives is circumstances….Then there is the catalyst of the Spiritual Disciplines. This catalyst differs from the first two in that when He uses the Disciplines, God works from the inside out. When He changes us through people and circumstances, the process works from the outside in. The Spiritual Disciplines also differ from the other two methods of change in that God grants us a measure of choice regarding involvement with them. We often have little choice regarding the people and circumstances God brings into our lives, but we can decide, for example, whether we will read the Bible or fast today.

Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO: 1991), 17-18.