Required reading
Spiritual Depression by D. M. Lloyd-Jones (available from - Read Chapter 15, 'Discipline'.
Now Lloyd-Jones looks at the person who is spiritually depressed through a lack of discipline. This lack of discipline arises from:
(i) a wrong view of faith - that as long as you have faith all is well;
(ii) sheer laziness.
(i) to have diligence;
(ii) supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity.
Lloyd-Jones made such an important point about how certain tasks must be given priority before others: 'If we agree about the importance of claiming time and of ordering our daily lives we must insist at all costs that certain things must be done. In other words if I really believe that the Bible is more important to me than the daily newspaper, I must read my Bible before I read the newspaper. Whatever I may leave undone, I must see to it that this is done. My prayer time must be insisted upon, I must have my time for meditation; whatever else is not done, I must do these things.' If Christians took this seriously and changed the word 'newspaper' for 'television', wouldn't that revolutionise Christianity in the Western world? We admit that the Bible is more important than television, but sadly don't show this in our day to day lives.
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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