Four Christian Disciplines

1) Meditate

John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

1. We want to let the written word take us to the Living Word.  –Jeanne Guyon.  Communion with the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14) is our goal in this model.  We see here the principle of ‘coming to Him’ using the Scriptures that testify of Him.  Each verse we can: 1. Thank Him for and 2. Ask for either revelation or power to obey.
2. So with a verse like 26 The Holy Spirit…will teach you all things… (Jn. 14:26) We would pray, Thank you Holy Spirit that you teach me, I ask for revelation on what it truly means for you to teach me, and help me to understand you leadings.  Or John 15:9 As the Father has loved Me, I love you.  We would pray, Jesus thank you for this love, strengthen me with might (Eph 3:16) to experience this love.  I ask for greater revelation of this love.  And we would worship and journal revelation.

That is the model. There are more examples at the end of this page.

1. Scriptures will impact us most when we pray them directly, not just thinking about them or studying them.  We when meet with Jesus, the Scriptures are our anointed conversation material.   So depending on the verse, we can thank God for the truth in it, and then ask for revelation on the verse, or ask for power to obey them.  The Scriptures are living and active (Heb 4:2) and are so powerful to transform us and renew our mind as we pray them.  They rewrite the code of our inner man enabling us to abide in God so that Christ can more fully manifest within us (Eph 3;16-19).
2. The Gen 1 principle is that the Holy Spirit hovers and waits to move in power wherever the Word is spoken by those in covenant with the Father.  Therefore we value the Scripture in prayer, though He speaks many ways and hears all our words.  The Spirit lives to reveal Jesus, and impart His love to us.
3. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good… (Gen. 1:2-4)

2) Sing the Scriptures

• Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. (Eph 5:18-19 Niv)

• I believe Eph 5:18-19 is being emphasized by many Spirit-led ministries, as the way to be filled with the Spirit.  The verse also goes on to say we should not answer the longing of our hearts with drunkenness, but rather be filled with the Spirit, by Singing to Jesus the Scriptures. I believe this is one of the most important verses in the bible about prayer.   This message of singing the Word is being spread all over the world through the prayer movement, and it needs to be a part of our prayer life.  God created the human heart so that singing opens the heart in a way that nothing else does.  Singing the Word is the main biblical prescription, the premier way, to be filled with the Spirit and set on fire for God.  Jesus was the Living Word before He became a man, and now we encounter Him by singing and praying/dialoguing the written word.  So we let the written word take us to the Living Word.  But we must grow our hearts in praying the Word.
• “Biblical ideas that you sing are ideas that you own.” They become yours.
  Premiere means to get the scripture deep in us: sing it, pray it, and not to the air, but to Him. Often.
  Is there anything as satisfying and powerful as singing about the details of Jesus, and declaring to Him that He is beautiful?
• To pray consistently, pray the scriptures. The word of God is the “chariot” the Holy Spirit rides on best in our lives and heart.
  To pray consistently, sing the scriptures. Singing unlocks the heart, causes truth to go deeper, and makes prayer enjoyable.
  Sing the word of God until you feel something on the inside move. Then sing more.
  To study the word and comprehend it is transforming; to then pray it and sing it – consuming.
  Prayer & the corresponding power of the Holy Spirit makes the heart fertile soil for the seed of the word to flourish.
• When we stand before God on Judgment Day, He is not going to ask us how big of house did we get, or how big did we make our bank account, but how big did our heart get by experiencing His love and revelation (1st commandment.)

3) Fast

• Fasting does not ‘earn’ us more of God.  It does increase our capacity to experience the Holy Spirit, and accelerate the process of communing prayer.  I have found fasting on water, 1 day a week, to be unparalleled in terms of its impact on my experiencing of God.  I am calling fiery believers to fast at least one day a week.  The benefits are tremendous in fasting two days a week, but let desire for God drive your fasting, not commands or religious spirit.
• This depth of fasting is well within the reach of most people.  But we desperately need more revelation of Jesus as our Bridegroom who has burning desire for us and fiery affections toward us.  As we live in the truth of the bridal paradigm, we fast because we long for Jesus.  Jesus told the Pharisees the day would come when the Bridegroom would be taken away from the disciples, and then they would fast out of longing for Him (Matt. 9:15).  When Jesus ascended to Heaven after His death and resurrection, He was taken away in the sense indicated in this Scripture.  The Bride of Christ is meant to long for His return, His Second Coming, and fasting is one way we express this longing.
• By knowing Jesus as our Bridegroom and seeing ourselves as His Bride, we will become energized with a spirit of prayer and filled with courage to live lives abandoned to God in holiness. Only then will fasting seem appropriate, reasonable or even wise.

4) Quiet your soul (from Mike Bickle)

• David calmed and quieted his soul (ps 131:2). We need to dial down or just take our foot off the gas pedal and listen (without stirring our souls up to fervor). An over-active soul keeps us out of sync with the subtle movements of the Spirit. We quiet our soul to connect with the Spirit’s whisper in our heart (the still small voice (1 Kings 19:11-13)). We quiet the turbulent activity of our soul in our clamoring for attention, pleasure, a restless anxious spirit that naturally active. It takes a while to get in sync with this (few months).  The discipline of waiting on the Lord, is invaluable.