Habits of Grace E-Book

David Mathis

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 295

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Christian life is built on three seemingly unremarkable practices: reading the Bible, prayer, and fellowship with other believers. However, according to David Mathis, such "habits of grace" are the God-designed channels through which his glorious grace flows—making them life-giving practices for all Christians. Whether it's hearing God's voice (the Word), having his ear (prayer), or participating in his body (fellowship), such spiritual rhythms of the Christian life have the power to awaken our souls to God's glory and stir our hearts for lifelong service in his name. What's more, these seemingly simple practices grant us access to a host of spiritual blessings that we can only begin to imagine this side of eternity—and the incredible joy that such blessings bring to God's children today.

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign-up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

“Simple. Practical. Helpful. In Habits of Grace, Mathis writes brilliantly about three core spiritual disciplines that will help us realign our lives and strengthen our faith. In a world where everything seems to be getting more complicated, this book will help us to downshift and refocus on the things that matter most.”

Louie Giglio, Pastor, Passion City Church, Atlanta; Founder, Passion Conferences

“Although this little book says what many others say about Bible reading, prayer, and Christian fellowship (with two or three others tacked on), its great strength and beauty is that it nurtures my resolve to read the Bible and it makes me hungry to pray. If the so-called ‘means of grace’ are laid out as nothing more than duties, the hinge of sanctification is obligation. But in this case, the means of grace are rightly perceived as gracious gifts and signs that God is at work in us, which increases our joy as we stand on the cusp of Christian freedom under the glories of King Jesus.”

D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; cofounder, The Gospel Coalition

“Most people assume that disciplined training is necessary for attaining any skill—professional, academic, or athletic. But for some reason, Christians do not see this principle applying to their Christian lives. In his excellent book, Habits of Grace, David Mathis makes a compelling case for the importance of the spiritual disciplines, and he does so in such a winsome way that will motivate all of us to practice the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. This book will be great both for new believers just starting on their journey and as a refresher course for those of us already along the way.”

Jerry Bridges, author, The Pursuit of Holiness

“David Mathis has more than accomplished his goal of writing an introduction to the spiritual disciplines. What I love most about the book is how Mathis presents the disciplines—or ‘means of grace’ as he prefers to describe them—as habits to be cultivated in order to enjoy Jesus. The biblical practices Mathis explains are not ends—that was the mistake of the Pharisees in Jesus’s day and of legalists in our time. Rather they are means by which we seek, savor, and enjoy Jesus Christ. May the Lord use this book to help you place yourself ‘in the way of allurement’ that results in an increase of your joy in Jesus.”

Donald S. Whitney, Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality, Senior Associate Dean of the School of Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

“So often as we consider the spiritual disciplines, we think of what we must do individually. Mathis takes a different approach that is both insightful and refreshing. Along with our personal time of prayer and reading, we are encouraged to seek advice from seasoned saints, have conversations about Bible study with others, and pray together. The Christian life, including the disciplines, isn’t meant to be done in isolation. Mathis’s depth of biblical knowledge along with his practical guidance and gracious delivery will leave you eager to pursue the disciplines, shored up by the grace of God.”

Trillia Newbell, author, United: Captured by God’s Vision for Diversity and Fear and Faith

“This is the kind of book I turn to periodically to help examine and recalibrate my heart, my priorities, and my walk with the Lord. David Mathis has given us a primer for experiencing and exuding ever-growing delight in Christ through grace-initiated intentional habits that facilitate the flow of yet fuller springs of grace into and through our lives.”

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author; radio host, Revive Our Hearts

“There is not a Christian in the world who has mastered the spiritual disciplines. In fact, the more we grow in grace, the more we realize how little we know of hearing from God, speaking to God, and meditating on God. Our maturity reveals our inadequacy. Habits of Grace is a powerful guide to the spiritual disciplines. It offers basic instructions to new believers while bringing fresh encouragement to those who have walked with the Lord for many years. It is a joy to commend it to you.”

Tim Challies, author, The Next Story; blogger, Challies.com

“When I was growing up, spiritual disciplines were often surrounded by an air of legalism. But today the pendulum has swung in the other direction: it seems that family and private devotions have fallen off the radar. The very word habits can be a turnoff, especially in a culture of distraction and autonomy. Yet character is largely a bundle of habits. Christ promises to bless us through his means of grace: his Word preached and written, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Like a baby’s first cry, prayer is the beginning of that life of response to grace given, and we never grow out of it. Besides prayer, there are other habits that grace motivates and shapes. I’m grateful for Habits of Grace bringing the disciplines back into the conversation and, hopefully, back into our practice as well.”

Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California; author, Calvin on the Christian Life

“David Mathis has given us a book on the spiritual disciplines that is practical, actionable, and accessible. He speaks with a voice that neither scolds nor overwhelms, offering encouragement through suggestions and insights to help even the newest believer find a rhythm by which to employ these means of grace. A treatment of the topic that is wonderfully uncomplicated and thorough, Habits of Grace offers both a place to start for beginners and a path to grow for those seasoned in the faith.”

Jen Wilkin, author, Women of the Word; Bible study teacher

“I am drawn to books that I know are first lived out in the messiness of life before finding their way onto clean sheets of paper. This is one of those books! David has found a well-worn path to Jesus through the habits of grace he commends to us. I am extremely grateful for David’s commitment to take the timeless message in this book and communicate it in language that is winsome to the mind and warm to the heart. This book has the breadth of a literature review that reads like a devotional. I am eager to get it into the hands of our campus ministry staff and see it being read in dorm rooms and student centers across the country.”

Matt Bradner, Regional Director, Campus Outreach

“David Mathis has provided us with a gospel-driven, Word-centered, Christ-exalting vision of Christian spiritual practices. Furthermore, he understands that sanctification is a community project: the local church rightly looms large in Habits of Grace. This book is perfect for small group study, devotional reading, or for passing on to a friend who is thinking about this topic for the first time. I give it my highest recommendation.”

Nathan A. Finn, Dean, The School of Theology and Missions, Union University

Habits of Grace

Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines

David Mathis

Foreword by John Piper

Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines

Copyright © 2016 by David C. Mathis

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jeff Miller, Faceout Studio

Cover image: Benjamin Devine

First printing 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5047-8 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5050-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5048-5 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5049-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mathis, David, 1980–

 Habits of grace : enjoying Jesus through the spiritual disciplines / David Mathis ; foreword by John Piper.

  pages cm

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-4335-5047-8 (tp)

 1. Spiritual life—Christianity. 2. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4501.3.M284   2016

248.4'6—dc23  2015023865

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2020-01-06 02:57:12 PM

To Carson and Coleman

May he give you a palate

for the ancient recipes

Contents

Foreword by John Piper

Preface

Introduction: Grace Gone Wild

Part 1

Hear His Voice (Word)

 1  Shape Your Life with the Words of Life

 2  Read for Breadth, Study for Depth

 3  Warm Yourself at the Fire of Meditation

 4  Bring the Bible Home to Your Heart

 5  Memorize the Mind of God

 6  Resolve to Be a Lifelong Learner

Part 2

Have His Ear (Prayer)

 7  Enjoy the Gift of Having God’s Ear

 8  Pray in Secret

 9  Pray with Constancy and Company

10  Sharpen Your Affections with Fasting

11  Journal as a Pathway to Joy

12  Take a Break from the Chaos

Part 3

Belong to His Body (Fellowship)

13  Learn to Fly in the Fellowship

14  Kindle the Fire in Corporate Worship

15  Listen for Grace in the Pulpit

16  Wash in the Waters Again

17  Grow in Grace at the Table

18  Embrace the Blessing of Rebuke

Part 4

Coda

19  The Commission

20  The Dollar

21  The Clock

Epilogue: Communing with Christ on a Crazy Day

Thanks

General Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

by John Piper

I don’t even think David intended this, but his title and subtitle are a chiasm. And I like it so much, I’m going to build my foreword around it. A chiasm (taken from the Greek letter chi, which looks like an X) is a sequence of thoughts in which the first and last member correspond, and the second and second-to-last member correspond, and so on, with a hinge thought in the middle. So the title of the book looks like this in a chiasm:

Habits

of Grace:

Enjoying Jesus

through the Spiritual

Disciplines

Habits corresponds to Disciplines. Grace corresponds to Spiritual. And Enjoying Jesus is the hinge. This is loaded with implications for why David’s book is worth reading.

The chiasm, and the book, and the theology behind it demand that enjoying Jesus be the hinge. But “hinge” only signifies the swing position in the middle of the other thoughts. There is always more to it than that. In this case, the hinge is the goal of all the rest.

David is writing a book to help you enjoy Jesus. In doing that, he is not trying to be nice. He’s trying to be nuclear. His way of thinking about enjoying Jesus is explosive. If you enjoy Jesus more than life (Matt. 10:38), you will live with a radical abandon for Jesus that will make the world wonder. Enjoyment of Jesus is not like icing on the cake; it’s like powder in the shell.

Not only is enjoying Jesus explosively transforming in the way we live; it is also essential for making Jesus look great. And that is why we have the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Spirit came to glorify him (John 16:14). The primary mission of the Spirit—and his people—is to show that Jesus is more glorious than anyone or anything else. It cannot be done by those who find this world more enjoyable than Jesus. They make the world look great. Therefore, the ultimate aim of the Christian life—and the universe—hangs on the people of God enjoying the Son of God.

But this is beyond us. Our hearts default to enjoying the world more than Jesus. This is why the hinge thought—enjoying Jesus—is bracketed on both sides by grace and spiritual.

Grace

Enjoying Jesus

Spiritual

Grace is the free and sovereign work of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, even though we don’t deserve it. Spiritual is the biblical word to describe what has been brought about by the Holy Spirit. “Spiritual” does not mean religious, or mystical, or new-age-like. It means: caused and shaped by God’s Spirit.

So the point is this: God almighty, by his grace and by his Spirit, does not leave us to ourselves when it comes to enjoying Jesus. He helps us. He does not say, “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Ps. 37:4), and then merely stand back and watch to see if we can. He makes a covenant with us and says, “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezek. 36:27). He causes what he commands. Enjoying Jesus is not optional. It is a duty. But it is also a gift—spiritual and gracious.

But the gift comes through means. This is why Grace is flanked by Habits, and Spiritual is flanked by Disciplines.

Habits

of Grace:

Enjoying Jesus

through the Spiritual

Disciplines

The Bible does not say, “God is at work in you to bring about his good purposes, therefore stay in bed.” It says, “Work out your salvation, because God is at work in you” (see Phil. 2:12–13). God’s work does not make our work unnecessary; it makes it possible. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). Grace does not just pardon our failures; it empowers our successes—like successfully enjoying Jesus more than life.

This book is about grace-empowered habits, and Spirit-empowered disciplines. These are the means God has given for drinking at the fountain of life. They don’t earn the enjoyment. They receive it. They are not payments for pleasure; they are pipelines. The psalmist does not say, “You sell them drink,” but, “You give them drink from the river of your delights” (Ps. 36:8). But all of us leak. We all need inspiration and instruction for how to drink—again and again. Habitually.

If you have never read a book on “habits of grace” or “spiritual disciplines,” start with this one. If you are a veteran lover of the river of God, but, for some reason, have recently been wandering aimlessly in the desert, this book will be a good way back.

John Piper

desiringGod.org

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Preface

I make no pretense that this is the definitive book, or anything close to it, on the spiritual disciplines—better, “the means of grace.” In fact, I’ve been intentional to keep things relatively brief. Think of this as an introduction or orientation. Many important lessons are left to others to provide in more extended treatments.1 In particular, I am eager to help Christians young and old simplify their approach to their various personal habits of grace, or spiritual disciplines, by highlighting the three key principles of ongoing grace: hearing God’s voice (his word), having his ear (prayer), and belonging to his body (fellowship).

This simplified approach, and many of the ideas developed in the pages ahead, were forged first in the classroom at Bethlehem College & Seminary, where I’ve taught “the disciplines” to the third-year collegiates. Next I made the effort to get the concepts the students seemed to find most helpful into article form at desiringGod.org. The response was encouraging, and Crossway was kind enough to provide the opportunity to bring the thoughts together and extend them in this form.

This volume is intentionally half the size of most others on the disciplines. I hope that some readers will go from here to the larger books. But I wanted to provide something shorter, yet still cover the major topics, in hopes of making a simplified approach to the means of grace accessible to others who wouldn’t take up the bigger volumes.

However, the roots of this book go back long before teaching college and writing articles. Seeds were sown earlier than I can even remember by my parents and childhood church in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Every morning Pop was up early reading his Bible and praying before heading into the dental office, and Mom typically had her Bible open on the dining room table as she dipped into the Book during the day. I frequently heard refreshers on the basics in varying detail and depth in elementary, middle, and high school classes at church.

In college, through the ministry of Campus Outreach, I was discipled during the semester and shaped by summer training projects. When I was a college junior, a discipler introduced me to Donald S. Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. I began teaching “how to have a quiet time” to younger students in the context of life-on-life discipleship, and then continued doing so on staff with Campus Outreach in Minneapolis. These experiences eventually led to instructing college juniors at Bethlehem.

I must mention the incalculable influence of John Piper, with whom I have worked closely since 2006. For those who know his ministry of preaching and writing, John’s fingerprints will be unmistakable in these pages, both in explicit quotations and in structures of thought and instincts I can’t shake, and wouldn’t want to. His 2004 book When I Don’t Desire God is the place to find his most concentrated practical teaching on Bible intake and prayer, but gold nuggets on the means of grace, and his own habits, are scattered throughout his corpus, especially in his annual new-year sermons on Bible and prayer available at desiringGod.org, and his answers to the litany of practical questions that come through the Ask Pastor John daily podcast.

Just after receiving the invitation to publish this book, I read Timothy Keller’s Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. You will see in part 2, on prayer, that already I’m gleaning much from Keller’s insights, and I greatly commend his book. My hope is that the little bit I have to say about prayer will point you in the right direction, and then sooner, rather than later, you will take it to the next level, and more, with Keller’s remarkable guide.

How This Book Is Different

I eagerly send you to the longer texts on the disciplines, but that doesn’t mean I’ve written this book merely as a summary, with nothing distinct to contribute. Perhaps the key distinguishing feature of this book, in addition to its brevity, is the threefold organizational scheme we’ve already noted. Here we cast the disciplines not as ten or twelve (or more) distinct practices to work into your life, but as three key principles (God’s voice, God’s ear, and God’s people), which then are fleshed out in countless creative and helpful habits in the varying lives of believers in their differing contexts.

In particular, this structure restores fellowship as a means of grace to its essential place in the Christian life. Piper’s, Keller’s, and Whitney’s books focus on personal disciplines, and include no extended sections, much less a full chapter, on the role of fellowship.2 In structuring this book in three parts, similar practices can be grouped and understood together, such that individual chapters are shorter and designed for reading in one sitting. My hope is that this will help you move toward application in your own practices by making clear that the point isn’t to practice at all times in one’s Christian walk every single specific discipline addressed, but to understand the key pathways of ongoing grace and seek to create regular habits for these principles in life.

At Crossway’s request, I’ve written a study guide to accompany this book for those who would like to deepen their reflections and applications. It is designed for both individual and group study, and is available in workbook format.

My prayer is that you will not come away exasperated that you simply don’t have time to put into practice all that this book commends. Rather, in its very structure, the book aims to help you see how realistic and life-giving it can be to integrate God’s means of grace into daily habits of life.

And alongside the emphasis on fellowship, this book also hopes to make the pursuit of joy more central, explicit, and pronounced than has typically been the case in many texts on the disciplines.

My Dream and Prayer for You

My prayer for you as you read is that you would find the means of grace to be practical, realistic, and desirable in your pursuit of joy in Christ. I hope that there are many things here beneficial to a general Christian audience, but that there will be a special appeal to college students and young adults who are learning to fly for themselves for the first time in the various rhythms and practices of the Christian life.

My dream is that this book would serve you with simplicity, stability, confidence, power, and joy. Simplicity in that looking at the means of grace in three main channels will help you understand the matrix of grace for living the Christian life and create practical pathways (your own habits) that are realistic and life-giving in your unique season of life. Stability in that getting to know your own soul, and creating rhythms and practices, will help you weather the ups and downs of life in this fallen world with the contentment that comes, in some measure, from knowing ourselves and learning ways in which we can help “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet” (Heb. 12:12–13) and “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21). Confidence in that as you walk these paths, you’ll see how God is faithful to sustain us and give us “grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Power in that hearing his word, having his ear, and belonging to his body fill our souls with spiritual energy and strength for the pouring out of ourselves in ministry and mission. And joy to satisfy our deepest longings that will only be met in their fullness when we see the God-man face to face and live in perfect communion with him, and all our fellows in him, forever.

The note we will strike again and again, without any apology, is that the means of grace, fleshed out in our various habits of grace, are to be for us means of joy in God, and thus means of his glory. And so the simplicity, stability, confidence, power, and joy of God himself stand behind these means. These are the paths of his promise. He stands ready to pour out his wonderfully wild and lavish grace through these channels. Are you ready?

1In particular, as you’ll find throughout the book, I am indebted to three texts I highly recommend—two old friends and one new: Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, rev. ed. (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2014); John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004); and Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York: Dutton, 2014).

2Whitney has made a good effort to compensate for it with Spiritual Disciplines within the Church: Participating Fully in the Body of Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1996).

Introduction

Grace Gone Wild

The grace of God is on the loose. Contrary to our expectations, counter to our assumptions, frustrating our judicial sentiments, and mocking our craving for control, the grace of God is turning the world upside down. God is shamelessly pouring out his lavish favor on undeserving sinners of all stripes and thoroughly stripping away our self-sufficiency.

Before turning our focus to “the means of grace,” and the practices (“habits”) that ready us to go on receiving God’s grace in our lives, this much must be clear from the outset: The grace of God is gloriously beyond our skill and technique. The means of grace are not about earning God’s favor, twisting his arm, or controlling his blessing, but readying ourselves for consistent saturation in the roll of his tides.

Grace has been on the move since before creation, roaming wild and free. Even before the foundation of the world, it was the untamed grace of God that jumped the bounds of time and space and considered a yet-to-be-created people in connection with his Son, and chose us in him (Eph. 1:4). It was in love—to the praise of his glorious grace—that “he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus” (Eph. 1:5). Such divine choice was not based on foreseeing anything good in us. He chose us by grace—not “on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:5–6). It was “not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:9).

With patience, then—through creation, fall, and flood, through Adam, Noah, Abraham, and King David—God prepared the way. Humanity waited and groaned, gathering up the crumbs of his compassion as a foretaste of some feast to come. The prophets “prophesied about the grace that was to be yours” (1 Pet. 1:10). And in the fullness of time, it came. He came.

Invading Our Space

Now “the grace of God has appeared” (Titus 2:11). Grace couldn’t be kept from becoming flesh and dwelling among us in the God-man, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace (John 1:16). The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth are here in him (John 1:17). Grace has a face.

But grace would not be restricted even here, even in this man. Grace would not just be embodied but break the chains to roam the globe unfettered. It was sheer grace that united us by faith to Jesus, Grace Incarnate, and blessed us in him “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3). In grace were we called with effect (Gal. 1:6) and given new birth in our souls. Because of grace unmeasured, boundless, free, now our once-dead hearts beat and our once-lifeless lungs breathe. Only through grace do we believe (Acts 18:27) and only in grace do we receive “repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25).

But such wild grace keeps going. We are given the Spirit of grace, experience our long-planned adoption, and enabled to cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15). We receive “the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).

Grace keeps breaking through barriers and casting away restraints. Grace justifies. A perfect, unimpeachable, divinely approved, humanly applied righteousness is ours in this union with Jesus. We are “justified by his grace as a gift” (Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:7). Through this one man Jesus, we are counted among “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17). And so we happily say with Paul, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal. 2:21).1

Breaking into Our Lives

And just when we think we have been carried far enough, that God has done for us all that we could imagine and more, grace shatters the mold again. Grace sanctifies. It is too wild to let us stay in love with unrighteousness. Too free to leave us in slavery to sin. Too untamed to let our lusts go unconquered. Grace’s power is too uninhibited to not unleash us for the happiness of true holiness.

So it is that we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18) and live “not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). Grace abounds not through our continuing in sin, but through our Spirit-empowered, ongoing liberation (Rom. 6:1). Grace is too strong to leave us passive, too potent to let us wallow in the mire of our sins and weaknesses. “My grace is sufficient for you,” Jesus says, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). It is the grace of God that gives us his “means of grace” for our ongoing perseverance and growth and joy this side of the coming new creation. And the grace of God inspires and empowers the various habits and practices by which we avail ourselves of God’s means.

Flooding the Future

Just when we’re sure it is done, and certain that some order must be restored and some boundary established, God’s grace not only floods our future in this life but also spans the divide into the next, and pours out onto the plains of our eternity. Grace glorifies.

If the Scriptures didn’t make plain this story of our glory, we’d be scared to even dream of such grace. Not only will Jesus be glorified in us, but we will be glorified in him, “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:12). He is “the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ” (1 Pet. 5:10). So Peter tells us to “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). It will be indescribably stunning in the coming ages as he shows “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). Even the most mature among us have only begun to taste the grace of God.

Chosen before time. Called with effect. United to Jesus in faith and repentance. Adopted and forgiven. Justified. Sanctified. Glorified. And satisfied forever. This is grace gone wonderfully wild. This is the flood of God’s favor in which we discover the power and practice of the means of grace.

Put Yourself in the Path of God’s Grace

It is in this endless sea of his grace that we walk the path of the Christian life and take steps of grace-empowered effort and initiative. It works something like this.

I can flip a switch, but I don’t provide the electricity. I can turn on a faucet, but I don’t make the water flow. There will be no light and no liquid refreshment without someone else providing it. And so it is for the Christian with the ongoing grace of God. His grace is essential for our spiritual lives, but we don’t control the supply. We can’t make the favor of God flow, but he has given us circuits to connect and pipes to open expectantly. There are paths along which he has promised his favor.

As we have celebrated above, our God is lavish in his grace; he is free to liberally dispense his goodness without even the least bit of cooperation and preparation on our part, and often he does. But he also has his regular channels. And we can routinely avail ourselves of these revealed paths of blessing—or neglect them to our detriment.

Where the Grace Keeps Passing

“The essence of the Christian life,” writes John Piper, “is learning to fight for joy in a way that does not replace grace.” We cannot earn God’s grace or make it flow apart from his free gift. But we can position ourselves to go on getting as he keeps on giving. We can “fight to walk in the paths where he has promised his blessings.”2 We can ready ourselves to remain receivers along his regular routes, sometimes called “the spiritual disciplines,” or even better, “the means of grace.”3

Such practices need not be fancy or highfalutin.4 They are the stuff of everyday, basic Christianity—unimpressively mundane, but spectacularly potent by the Spirit. While there’s no final and complete list of such practices, the long tally of helpful habits can be clustered underneath three main principles: hearing God’s voice, having his ear, and belonging to his body. Or simply: word, prayer, and fellowship.5

In the last generation, we have seen some resurgence of interest among Christians in the spiritual disciplines, many of which were considered “means of grace” by our spiritual ancestors. “The doctrine of the disciplines,” says J. I. Packer, “is really a restatement and extension of classical Protestant teaching on the means of grace.”6 Whatever the term, the key is that God has revealed certain channels through which he regularly pours out his favor. And we’re foolish not to take his word on them and build habits of spiritual life around them.

What Means of Grace Means and Doesn’t

To put means with grace might endanger the free nature of grace. But it need not do so—not if the means are coordinate with receiving and the exertions of effort are graciously supplied. This is emphatically the case for the Christian. Here there is no ground for boasting.7

The one on whom we lean is “the God of all grace” (1 Pet. 5:10). He not only elects the undeserving without condition (Rom. 8:29–33; Eph. 1:4) and works in them the miracle of new birth and the gift of faith, but he also freely declares them righteous by that faith (“justification”) and begins supplying the flow of spiritual life and energy to experience the joy of increasing Christlikeness.

As we have seen, God’s immense flood of grace not only sees us as holy in Christ but also progressively produces holy desires in us (“sanctification”). It is grace to be forgiven of sinful acts, and grace to be supplied the heart for righteous ones. It is grace that we are increasingly “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), and grace that he doesn’t leave us in the misery of our sin but pledges to bring to completion the good work he has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).

For the glory of God, the good of others, and the satisfaction of our souls, the aim of the Christian life is our coming to share in such Christlikeness or godliness—which is “holiness” rightly understood. And all our exertions of effort toward that goal are gifts of grace.

Train Yourself for Godliness

Yes, it is grace, and yes, we expend effort. And so the apostle Paul says to his protégé, “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). Discipline yourself for growth. Take regular action to get more of God in your mind and your heart, and echo his ways in your life—which will make you increasingly like him (“godliness”). It’s a gift, and we receive it as we become it.

Paul’s own reliance on God for ongoing grace is a powerful testimony to this Christian dynamic of the means of grace and the habits of life we cultivate. He says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am. . . . I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” God’s grace didn’t make Paul passive but supplied the energy for discipline and effort, and every ounce of energy expended was all of grace.

And Paul says in Romans 15:18, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.” Jesus’s grace, in this instance, didn’t mean accomplishing his purpose despite Paul, or apart from him, but through