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A MAN'S GUIDE TO THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

Moody Publishers

Contents

Acknowledgments.........................................................9A Guide to Group Discussion.............................................11An Introduction to the Spiritual Disciplines 15Part 1: Discipline Related to the Works of God1. A Man and Creation...................................................21Part 2: Discipline Related to the Word Of God2. A Man and the Bible..................................................35Part 3: Disciplines Related to the "Whisper" of God3. A Man and Prayer.....................................................494. A Man and Worship....................................................655. A Man and the Sabbath................................................816. A Man and Fellowship.................................................937. A Man and Counsel....................................................1058. A Man and Fasting....................................................1179. A Man and Spiritual Warfare..........................................129Part 4: Disciplines Related to a Witness for God10. A Man and Stewardship...............................................14111. A Man and Service...................................................15512. A Man and Evangelism................................................167Afterword...............................................................183Notes...................................................................185

Chapter One

PREVIEW

In this chapter we will examine what God says about His creation. We'll:

See how nature reveals God's character.

Learn why it's important to cultivate an attitude of enjoying God's creation.

Consider positive ways to begin incorporating this discipline into daily life.

Let's begin this chapter with a brief pop quiz to test your creation IQ.

1. Circle the answer that best reflects how you regard creation. Creation is:

Good Evil Neutral

2. Which of the following answers best describes the relationship between creation (nature, the universe) and God?

a. Nature hints of God.

b. Nature reveals God.

c. Nature conceals God.

d. Nature tarnishes God.

Let's explore how the Bible answers these two questions.

The Bible on Nature

When C. S. Lewis was an atheist, he explained why he didn't believe in God. He wrote,

Look at the universe we live in. By far the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold.... It is improbable that any planet except the Earth sustains life. And Earth herself existed without life for millions of years and may exist without life for millions more when life has left her. And what is it like while it lasts? It is so arranged that all the forms of it can live only by preying upon one another.... In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason.... It enables men by a hundred ingenious contrivances to inflict a great deal more pain than they otherwise could have done on one another and on the irrational creatures. This power they have exploited to the full. Their history is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror, with just sufficient happiness interposed to give them, while it lasts, an agonized apprehension of losing it, and, when it is lost, the poignant misery of remembering....

There was one question which I never dreamed of raising.... If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that.

So is creation good, evil, or neutral? Author Leonard Sweet helps us uncover the answer in his book Soul Tsunami, in which he describes his family buying their first television set. His mother was a traveling evangelist, and their church was quite legalistic. The Sweet family bought the set when TVs first became available. One night there came a knock on the door. The pastor had dropped by the house to visit, and the TV happened to be on.

The pastor peered in and said, "So it's true. You have bought the devil's blinking box." Leonard's mother argued that matter is not evil-it's what people do with matter that makes it evil. Still, the Sweet family was put out of the church for having the "devil's blinking box."

Mrs. Sweet was right. Matter itself is not evil. Nothing in God's creation is evil-not thunder, lightning, storms, movies, or television signals. And yet, because of the fall, thunder can scare your children, lightning can hit your home and start a fire, storm winds can split a tree that then crashes into your living room, movies can debase human beings made in God's image, and television can bring profanity to your ears and lust to your eyes.

Nevertheless, the Bible says, "The whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3, emphasis added). Now, this used to really bother me, because when we look around we see a lot of evil. We also see a third force at work in the world: futility, or that which simply doesn't matter. I wondered, How could the earth be full of God's glory when there is so much evil and futility?

Then one day, while studying glucose, I was struck with an analogy. Glucose is a three-part compound: [C.sub.6] [H.sub.12] [O.sub.6]-six parts carbon, twelve parts hydrogen, six parts oxygen. So glucose is full of oxygen, but not only oxygen; it is also full of carbon and hydrogen. In the same way, the earth really is full of God's glory, despite the fact that it is also full of evil and futility.

The Bible also says, "For everything God created is good" (1 Timothy 4:4). Colossians 1:16 goes even further,

For by [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

So the bottom line in Scripture is this: (1) God made everything. (2) Everything God made is good. Therefore, (3) everything is intrinsically good. That implies that nature has meaning and value. This is not to say that nature is incorruptible. Because of the fall we have to explain the stench of polluted rivers, belching smokestacks, and natural disasters. What the Bible does mean, however, is that apart from sin, nature is good. According to his wife, Edith, theologian/philosopher Francis Schaeffer would often say, "There is a lot of leftover beauty in nature." Or as Sam said to Frodo at a point of despair in the movie adaptation of The Two Towers, (book two of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy), "There's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."

For our belief system to hold together, we must explain evil, but, frankly, that's not very hard. Evil wasn't part of the original plan. The answer lies in the fall. The fall of man and woman introduced every evil and bad thing that exists in creation. You'll find that event recorded in Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned. We've been sinning ever since.

Now back to question #1: Is creation good, evil, or neutral? What's...