Today's TLA is COD
Celebration Of Discipline
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
I like the boldness of the above paragraph. It is the first paragraph of a book called Celebration of Discipline. Well I don't have anything interesting to write about today so the following will just be the collection of notes I have taken during my reading of the book. It is kind of like a book report. It's too bad. How come as adults we don't have book reports anymore? Like I remember making diaoramas, story boards, mobiles, or poster boards about books I have read. Ok enough random thoughts and shenanigans and on to my notes. I think only DC and DC's friends on jack.html will ever read this entry. Anyway look below, I even made a heading to make it even look like a book report... Dang I am a nerd...
Jonathan Reyes <first> <last>
10-09-05 <date>
Celebration Of Discipline <title>
8A <home room class>
Meditation:
"Christian meditation, very simply is the ability to hear God's voice and his word."
"What we see over and over is God's people learning to live on the basis of hearing God's voice and obeying his word."
"... Jesus has not stopped acting and speaking... He is not idle, nor has he developed larryngitis."
"The detachment from the confusion all around us is in order to have a richer attachment to God... giver ourselves to God freely."
"Meditation is guidance dealing with ordinary human problems."
"Meditation boldly calls us to enter into the living presence of God for ourselves."
"My peace I give to you."
Prayer:
To pray is to change.
...But when we pray. God slowly and graciously reveals to us our evasive actions and sets us free from them...
...to breathe is to pray...
our goal is to learn always to think God's thoughts after him, but we all have times when our human desires get in the way.
Listening to God is the necessary prelude to intercession ... listen for guidance.
We do not pray for people as "things" , but as "persons" whom we love.
We should never make prayer too complicated. We are prone to do so once we understand that prayer is something we must learn.
...Jesus taught us to t come like children
...Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread.
...the imaginataion is a powerful tool in the work of prayer.
We must never wait until we feel like praying before we pray for others.
I want a life of greater, deeper, and truer prayer.
Fasting:
Modern Culture...confuses fasting with mortification.
Satisfy every human appetite has made fasting obsolete.
Throughout scripture fasting refers to obstaining from food for spiritual purposes.
Because of secularization of modern society, "fasting" (if it is done at all) is usually motivated by vanity or by desire for power.
Christ both upheld the Discipline of fasting and anticipated that his follewers would do it.
...Our affluent society fasting involves a far larger sacrifice thant the giving of money.
Purpose of fasting? (Fasting must forever center on God) Food does not sustain us, God sustains us, We are fasting on the word of God.
You are to be a master of your stomach not its slave.
Study:
Good feelings will not free us. Ecstatic experiences will not free us. Getting "high on Jesus" will not free us. Without a knowledge of the truth, we will not be free.
Study in a specific kind of experience in which through careful attention to reality the mind is enabled to move in a certain direction.
What we study determines the kind of habits of thought that are formed, which is why Paul urges us to focus on things that are true, honarable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious.
Four Types of Study:
-Repetition - ingrains habits of thought
-Concentration - centers the mind (no distractions)
-Comprehension - focusses in on knowledge of the truth, leads to growth and freedom
-Reflection - describes the significance, not only understand the subject , but ourselves as well.
We must submit to teh system (of study)
We must be humble.
Arrogance and a teachable spirit are mutally exclusive.
Accumulation of information does NOT equal knowledge.
Three intrinsic rules of study
1) Understanding
2) Interpreting
3) Evaluating
Experience is the only way we can interpret and relate to what we read.
Purpose to study scripture if for inner transformation life transforming truth not just good feelings.
Experience what you read.
-reverent observation ("Butterfly as moth")
love everything == divine mysteries
Pride and fear
We study humanity. Study provides joy!
Simplicity:
God made man (and woman) simple. Man's complex problems are of his own devising.
The Christian Discipline of Simplicity is an inward reality in an outward life-style.
I am learning that a man can live profoundly withouth masses of things.
We have no unity or focus aroun which our lives are oriented.
Because we lack a divine center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things.
Lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic.
Mass media has convinced us that to be out of step with fasion is to be out of step with reality.
...conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
The Biblical injunctions against the exploitation of teh poor and accumulation of wealt are clear and straightforward.
Jesus speaks to the question of economics more than any othere single social issue.
First seek God to create an inward reality for both personal ans social concerns we shall seek God first.
Wealth does not bring freedom from anxiety
What we have is not the reuslt of our labor, but the gracious care of God.
Refuse to be a slave to anything but God.
Timesaving devices almost never save time.
US less than 6% of population but has 33% of the world's energy?
Solitude:
Inward Solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from other people, but in order to hear the divine. Whisper better.
A person under the disicpline of silence is a person who can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said.
Submission:
"If anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
The cross life is the life of voluntary submission....
Wow that's a lot of notes. I figure I might as well write all of these things down somewhere.
Enjoy,
Jonathan
Celebration Of Discipline
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
I like the boldness of the above paragraph. It is the first paragraph of a book called Celebration of Discipline. Well I don't have anything interesting to write about today so the following will just be the collection of notes I have taken during my reading of the book. It is kind of like a book report. It's too bad. How come as adults we don't have book reports anymore? Like I remember making diaoramas, story boards, mobiles, or poster boards about books I have read. Ok enough random thoughts and shenanigans and on to my notes. I think only DC and DC's friends on jack.html will ever read this entry. Anyway look below, I even made a heading to make it even look like a book report... Dang I am a nerd...
Jonathan Reyes <first> <last>
10-09-05 <date>
Celebration Of Discipline <title>
8A <home room class>
Meditation:
"Christian meditation, very simply is the ability to hear God's voice and his word."
"What we see over and over is God's people learning to live on the basis of hearing God's voice and obeying his word."
"... Jesus has not stopped acting and speaking... He is not idle, nor has he developed larryngitis."
"The detachment from the confusion all around us is in order to have a richer attachment to God... giver ourselves to God freely."
"Meditation is guidance dealing with ordinary human problems."
"Meditation boldly calls us to enter into the living presence of God for ourselves."
"My peace I give to you."
Prayer:
To pray is to change.
...But when we pray. God slowly and graciously reveals to us our evasive actions and sets us free from them...
...to breathe is to pray...
our goal is to learn always to think God's thoughts after him, but we all have times when our human desires get in the way.
Listening to God is the necessary prelude to intercession ... listen for guidance.
We do not pray for people as "things" , but as "persons" whom we love.
We should never make prayer too complicated. We are prone to do so once we understand that prayer is something we must learn.
...Jesus taught us to t come like children
...Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread.
...the imaginataion is a powerful tool in the work of prayer.
We must never wait until we feel like praying before we pray for others.
I want a life of greater, deeper, and truer prayer.
Fasting:
Modern Culture...confuses fasting with mortification.
Satisfy every human appetite has made fasting obsolete.
Throughout scripture fasting refers to obstaining from food for spiritual purposes.
Because of secularization of modern society, "fasting" (if it is done at all) is usually motivated by vanity or by desire for power.
Christ both upheld the Discipline of fasting and anticipated that his follewers would do it.
...Our affluent society fasting involves a far larger sacrifice thant the giving of money.
Purpose of fasting? (Fasting must forever center on God) Food does not sustain us, God sustains us, We are fasting on the word of God.
You are to be a master of your stomach not its slave.
Study:
Good feelings will not free us. Ecstatic experiences will not free us. Getting "high on Jesus" will not free us. Without a knowledge of the truth, we will not be free.
Study in a specific kind of experience in which through careful attention to reality the mind is enabled to move in a certain direction.
What we study determines the kind of habits of thought that are formed, which is why Paul urges us to focus on things that are true, honarable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious.
Four Types of Study:
-Repetition - ingrains habits of thought
-Concentration - centers the mind (no distractions)
-Comprehension - focusses in on knowledge of the truth, leads to growth and freedom
-Reflection - describes the significance, not only understand the subject , but ourselves as well.
We must submit to teh system (of study)
We must be humble.
Arrogance and a teachable spirit are mutally exclusive.
Accumulation of information does NOT equal knowledge.
Three intrinsic rules of study
1) Understanding
2) Interpreting
3) Evaluating
Experience is the only way we can interpret and relate to what we read.
Purpose to study scripture if for inner transformation life transforming truth not just good feelings.
Experience what you read.
-reverent observation ("Butterfly as moth")
love everything == divine mysteries
Pride and fear
We study humanity. Study provides joy!
Simplicity:
God made man (and woman) simple. Man's complex problems are of his own devising.
The Christian Discipline of Simplicity is an inward reality in an outward life-style.
I am learning that a man can live profoundly withouth masses of things.
We have no unity or focus aroun which our lives are oriented.
Because we lack a divine center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things.
Lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic.
Mass media has convinced us that to be out of step with fasion is to be out of step with reality.
...conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
The Biblical injunctions against the exploitation of teh poor and accumulation of wealt are clear and straightforward.
Jesus speaks to the question of economics more than any othere single social issue.
First seek God to create an inward reality for both personal ans social concerns we shall seek God first.
Wealth does not bring freedom from anxiety
What we have is not the reuslt of our labor, but the gracious care of God.
Refuse to be a slave to anything but God.
Timesaving devices almost never save time.
US less than 6% of population but has 33% of the world's energy?
Solitude:
Inward Solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from other people, but in order to hear the divine. Whisper better.
A person under the disicpline of silence is a person who can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said.
Submission:
"If anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
The cross life is the life of voluntary submission....
Wow that's a lot of notes. I figure I might as well write all of these things down somewhere.
Enjoy,
Jonathan
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
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Editor Choice, at 4:23 PM
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Anonymous, at 8:20 AM
Thanks Jonathan, I enjoyed the report. Good stuff to chew on.
By
hajush, at 10:26 AM
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