Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Panel discussion.

[0:00] I’m just going to read a verse from 1st Timothy in chapter 4 where we get the basis for the topic, this afternoon. I’ll make a couple of remarks in opening and then we will just be having more of a conversation, a conversation on this important topic of spiritual disciplines for the purpose, of godliness. But we’ll read from the from the Word of God here in 1st Timothy chapter 4 and beginning at verse 7. But refuse profane and old wives fables and exercise thyself or train thyself, discipline thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.

[0:55] We were talking this morning about the need for godliness, and I hope we would all share, those of us who are born of the Spirit, a greater desire for personal godliness in our lives, that it is a felt need, even as we were talking this morning, that the Lord would intervene, for godliness seems to be so lacking.
But now we get to really the sweat of it, the work of it, because what we’re going to find out is that godliness isn’t easy. It’s expected, it’s commanded, but it is not easy. The word here, we’ll take some time to discuss it just at the beginning, the word is a very rigorous word, a word that, like I said, involves training, discipline, effort, and so we’re gonna talk about really some of the spiritual disciplines that are necessary in the pursuit of godliness.
I have felt this burden, it was kind of one of my ideas really for the conference to take up this this topic. I have felt that among my own generation, and those maybe a bit younger, there is a healthy rejection, maybe even hatred of legalism. There is the eyebrow raising and the, disgust when people stand up on a platform and make rules. But I wonder sometimes if the hatred for legalism is complimented by this rather, don’t fall off the stage now brother, we need you.

[2:23] By this rather careless or, you know, if godliness happens it’ll happen.
I’ll just coast and when it happens it’ll happen in spiritual things.
And God, discipline is a word that the apostle Paul loved, you know, he beat his, he says he disciplined his body, kept it under subjection, but he hated legalism. And so we know that these things maybe can get related in our mind, but they are distinct. We’ll talk maybe a bit more about that tomorrow. But that’s really the burden for this. What are the practical disciplines in your life and mine? This will apply to really all ages, all genders by and large. What are the practical disciplines that we need to incorporate in our daily lives if we want to be godly?
I read something that at first I was like, wow, that’s a little strong the way he said it, but he said this, there is no access to God outside of Christ.

[3:22] And there is no godliness without discipline.
That there’s no other way. We’ll learn that here in this verse.
Discipline thyself, exercise thyself, train thyself rather onto godliness.
And so this panel is really for all of us who would like to grow in godliness to incorporate spiritual disciplines. Discipline is in vogue now today. YouTube is filled and people are following morning routines. And there are psychologists and psychoanalysts that have become famous for giving self-help courses on how to get better discipline and structure in somebody’s life. Well, godliness will require discipline, and it will require structure in a person’s life if they’re going to be serious about the things, of God. And so I’ve just organized the discussion in really a few topics. We’re going to look at really godliness personally. Discipline thyself rather unto godliness. And so the personal discussions I broke it down in my own mind when we get to the practical things like my Bible and I.

[4:22] And the disciplines necessary with the Word of God. My prayers and I, my prayer life and I. And then lastly, my body and I. I’ve chosen those three because those three are all found in the Word of God. When it comes to the subject of spiritual disciplines, we can get kind of, you know, gardening could be a spiritual discipline to somebody. Or mowing the lawn can be a time where people, you know, and we can get really vague. So I’ve tried to limit it to things that we find in the Bible. My Bible and I, my prayer life and I, and my body and I. Three areas in which a godly person will have to be disciplined. But just as we begin, that’s just my brief introduction. Maybe if any of our brethren here, thankful for them, being here and their help, if you can better define or explain what godliness is, or if you’d like to just jump right in in 1st Timothy 4 and explain this word for exercise and what the Apostle has in mind to Timothy.
So just feel totally free to jump right in on those.

[5:22] Joe, I thought that the point that you made in the meeting this morning about godliness not being godlikeness, but a disposition, an attitude towards God. I think disposition is my word, but you were using similar descriptions. It’s a really important thing. And so, just to recap for anyone who wasn’t there, one of the big points that you were making was, that ungodliness is forgetting God, it’s leaving God out of the equation, whereas godliness is bringing God into the equation.
And so godliness should really be the, should be a characteristic of all of us as the Lord’s people in every department of our lives.
But that doesn’t come easily, and it most certainly doesn’t come naturally.
And so you get these kinds of words that you’ve been highlighting for, you know, exercising, for discipline.
And in addition, in a minute we can go to Titus and think about some things that Paul says to Titus, which you alluded to this morning.

[6:38] Yeah, it was very good what you said this morning, yes. I don’t want to repeat, Ian.
To bring God in our lives.
See, some years ago I didn’t use glasses. Now I’m using them.
I need to focus and I have to see through my glasses. And I think Godliness can be, in a way, described in that way.
We bring God in our lives in a way, the way we see the world, the way we see ourselves, the way we see the others through the eyes of God.
So when we bring God in our lives, everything that we see is through the, let’s say the glasses, divine glasses, and that, in a way, help or better focus us, to be more concentrated and more biblically, and thinking more biblically, in that sense.
Henry, what do you mean by bringing God into our lives? What do we mean by this? Okay, so…

[7:51] What do I mean by bringing God in our lives? We mentioned a bit of, you know, a bit of legalism.
Now, it has to do with our behavior.
But before we talk about behavior, there is something deeper than our behavior, which is our character.
You may behave perfectly. You may come to every meeting, and even you may pray.
But if your character is not changed, that doesn’t have any effect, or it’s not just hypocrisy.
Your character depends on your values, what values you held.
You may have a good character, as is your neighbor maybe, but if that character is not, supported by values, again, is empty.
And the values depend on your worldview.

[8:49] So in all these four elements, you have to be careful that as we speak to others, or we as teachers and preachers, we have to tackle the worldview.
Because you may have people change their behavior, but not the worldview.
And when the storms in life come as the worldview that gives us the direction.
So that worldview should be a godly, a divine worldview.
So I invite God into my life.
And so what is conversion? Now, I don’t want to go further, but what is conversion?
It’s changing your worldview. I see myself with the eyes of God.
I’m a sinner. I’m lost.
I see Christ with the eyes of God. He’s a savior.
His blood was shed for my sins. And I see God how God sees himself.
So conversion, turning, as we read this morning, they turn, they change the worldview.
So godliness means we see everything as God sees it.

[10:02] As God sees it. What is the difference between a Godly, a Christian, who has God in his life, and a non-Christian, or an atheist, who doesn’t have God?
So he doesn’t see with the eyes of God, with the divine eyes, what, again, but who God is, who the others are, and who yourself is.
Yeah, so the scriptures wouldn’t want to give the impression that godliness is taking God and bringing him into our lives as if he’s not involved already. You know, in him we live and move and have our being. And so godliness is just the recognition that God holds sway in my life, that it actually, he actually does hold sovereign sway, and not only in my life, but in the life of every person. The atheist or the person who is an unbeliever just hasn’t bowed to that.
That. So I wonder if we could have maybe some discussion on the word… Oh, did you have something?
Well, let me… I’m not sure if this is hair splitting. So if it is, shoot me. So is there a difference between bringing God into our lives or bringing our lives into subjection.

[11:16] His will, his mind, his purpose. I have a notion there might be a slight difference in that. And so when you’re coming to 1 Timothy 3, not 4 but 3, great is the mystery of godliness.
So we were looking at the example of Joseph this morning and there are any number in the the Old Testament, there are examples of godliness where people seem to view their life in the, way that we’ve been speaking about just now. They brought God into everything. This is what we were saying about Joseph. But when you come to 1 Timothy 3, great is the mystery of godliness. So there was godliness that was seen in Christ that had never been seen before. It’s the mystery of godliness. So that which is mystery truth has not been revealed, before. So the Lord stands completely distinct, but he’s saying things like, I do always those things that please the Father. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. You know, those kinds of things, which certainly seem to be somewhere higher than even Joseph or any of them at their very best.
No, very good. I see what you’re saying. Good hair to split.
So what about the word discipline? Any help on that? Like, what does that word mean?

[12:39] Maybe I could just tell you what I think before you jump in. It’s the idea of, it’s where we get the word gymnastics from. And I understand, you know, every day in the United States, it’s National something day. Well, today’s National Gymnastics Day, believe it or not.
I saw that this morning. So we’re right up to date. We’re very relevant this session right here.
It should be abolished. Yeah, very good.
So we’re talking about really what this, someone has said that this term has the smell of the gym on it.
This is a sweat term, right? Gymnasticize yourself for godliness.
Like put in the work, put in the effort. In other words, Paul’s telling his son of the faith, Timothy, it’s not going to come easy, Timothy.

[13:23] It’s not going to be by osmosis. You’re not going to sleep beside your Bible and wake up godly.
This is going to take work.
To take labor, it’s going to take striving. And now again, not divorced from grace, which you were kind of alluding to there in Titus, and also Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, where he says, I labored more abundant than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God in me. And so it’s not divorced from grace, it’s not disconnected from the gospel, but it’s out of the gospel and out of grace, this vigorous word for training, for discipline. So if you have anything to add on the word itself.
I’m not sure if it’s the same word, but you’ve got the same idea in Hebrews 12, that no chastening for the present seems to the joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. It’s that idea of stripping down for the gym, because as you’ve been explaining, you’re putting effort and energy into it.

[14:20] So here’s a question, maybe you can help us with this, Henry.
Why worry about discipline for godliness if, as we’ve been discussing, if all of us who are saved are one day going to be conformed to the image of his son?
That is a fact. That is the purpose of God.
Why not just coast to the finish line? It’s going to happen.
Why worry about, if it’s going to be this much work, if it’s going to be sweat and training, why worry about it?

[14:51] So, that’s a very good question, that challenges me, challenges everybody. Why worry about it?
We have to realize that when we’ll be on the other side, yes, we’ll be changed, but the transformation will be different.
What I’m going to say is.

[15:14] How to put it?
We bought a plastic tractor for our son when he was only two, I remember, building up for Christmas.
You see, Christmas night, you know, before Christmas, and then he came, ah, tractor, he loved it, okay?
So, and then he took the tractor to the farm. My father-in-law is a farmer, and he has a huge tractor, a real one.
Now, Luke loved his tractor, and he played with his tractor.
Papa loved his tractor, and worked with his tractor.
They’re all happy with their tractors, but the tractors were different.
And I think that when we’ll be on the other side of heaven, everybody will have in a way, his tractor, his enjoyment will be full.
The cups will be full, but I believe the cups will be different, different sizes.
So that means, do I want in a way to be thankful to my Lord who did that great sacrifice for me.
And that means that when we’ll go on the other side, I’ll bring my knowledge of him.

[16:30] And that means that I’ll know Him as He knows me now. But the enjoyment, I don’t want to say that, you know, don’t get me wrong on that.
But I think the enjoyment of Christ will depend from how much we know Him today.
And that I have to practice myself and to train myself into the fellowship And, you know, Bible reading, prayer, and all that, which results in better knowledge of God.
But is it also to do with this, that, you know, we’re not saved to be made happy.
We’re not saved just so that we might be in heaven. We’re not saved just so that we won’t be in hell.
I mean, all of those things are true.

[17:19] But the first thing is, we’ve been saved for the Lord.
So this is Israel, long ago. You should be a peculiar people unto me.
But it comes up in this Titus 2 passage to which we’re making allusion.
Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people.
Not odd or strange, even though that might be the case at times, but a people for his own possession.
So this is the big thing about redemption, it’s the big thing about being saved, that we don’t belong to ourselves anymore, we belong to him.
And therefore what we surely would want to do is to be what he wants us to be, which is now be conformed to his image, to the great degree that we’re able to be conformed to his image, even if when we ultimately are conformed to his image, it would be a whole lot more than what we experience now.
So I think that in all areas of our Christian life, it’s a really important thing to remember that we are his.
We’re not our own anymore, and that then would govern everything, including this whole idea of disposition towards God in godliness.

[18:31] So some people react or reject against the word discipline because they think it’s going to, hamper their freedom. You know, I’m free. I have, and I’m already stretched. I’m a very busy person.
I have a lot of pans on the fire and now discipline seems to hamper me and make me less free.
Does discipline do that? These disciplines we’re going to talk about, does it make me, does it hamper my freedom? Or do we maybe have a skewed understanding of what we’re free to do?
And what freedom actually is? Well, exactly. Well, in spiritual things, true freedom is actually being bound to Christ, isn’t it?
It’s that whole thing. You know, there’s not a free person in the world.
You’re either a slave to sin or you’re a servant of God, Romans 6.
But discipline is Titus 2 again, isn’t it? That the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men, teaching us.
It’s the idea of disciplining us. but that is the idea in the word. It’s a disciplining thing. So it disciplines us to deny. So we’re, living in an age where third wave feminism and beyond says, you can be what you want.

[19:43] You can be what you want. People actually think this, that you can be what you want.
And that worldly thinking is very pervasive in society and what’s thought about out there soon enough, if we’re not careful, becomes part of our thinking.
So it’s well worth remembering that actually what the grace of God teaches us to do is to deny.
So we’re to deny ungodliness, number one, and we’re to deny worldly lust, number two, so that we should live soberly as far as I’m concerned, righteously as far as my relationship with you is concerned, and godly as far as God is concerned in this present world.
But we’ll maybe come to that.
May I add, in every aspect of our daily life, we use discipline.

[20:35] We use discipline to go to school. We use discipline to go to work.
We use discipline in every aspect of life.
We have all our watches, we have all our calendars, Google calendars or whatever it is.
So we are disciplined.
It’s not that we are required to do something that we have never done before.
And so what we are required now is, maybe loads of you have a gym subscription.
See, where you go there every day or whatever it is. So what we are required is to have a divine gem subscription, subscription, which is not an unusual thing that which we have.

[21:22] Yeah, I know like say an instrument like the piano or the guitar, I am bound because I don’t, know how to use the five strings. But somebody who’s practiced for thousands and thousands of hours and disciplined themselves, they’re free. Now, they weren’t free for all the work they put, in. All the time that they spent practicing was really tied them down for all the things I could do. But what you see when they have those strings in their hand, they’re free and I’m bound. And so, you see, there’s people you meet. And I think one of the things I would just pass on for, and I, And I think you might agree with this as far as godliness or training for godliness.
When it comes to training for anything, practice or training to be financially responsible or training to parent, most of us needed some kind of a shepherd or mentor or somebody to help us along.
And I would say when it comes to godliness, if there is, like if you know someone who’s.

[22:14] Godly, that’s a great person to get their ear and figure out, like get close to that person and figure out how, and I’m sure if they are godly, they’d be more than happy.

[22:25] To help you along, right? Because we all need help and training on these things.
Can I just raise what I think is a practical difficulty on this? We all have different dispositions. Some people by nature are unbelievably disciplined, okay? It just seems to come to them without any great effort. They’re always up early, they always go to bed on time, you know what I mean. Now, some of us are not just exactly like that and actually, it’s a struggle. So just like some people look at life and see, you know, two men look through prison bars, one saw mud, one saw stars. Some people are optimistic, some people, are not. Some people are melancholic, some people are a whole lot better than that in, in their outlook or happier. So we’re all born with a set of genes and some people’s genes are a whole lot more likely to produce discipline easier and quicker and more long lasting than in other people. So what steps might we say could we take if we are at that wrong end of the scale on this to sort ourselves out.

[23:45] Oh, you’re looking at me. Go ahead. Okay.
Not saying you’re on the wrong end of the scale. No, you think I’m going to speak from experience, well.
Well, I think there’s a really important thing in this, which is this, that in any spiritual exercise, and in this matter of discipline, in the matter of holy living, it is not a natural thing.
Very good. So, we are absolutely 100% dependent on the energies of the Holy Spirit within us in all areas of seeking to live a godly life. So, is self-discipline important? The answer to that is yes. Okay? But self-discipline by itself will not produce the desired result. So, I’m thinking of Romans 8 for instance, if ye through the spirit demortify the deeds of the body you shall live.
So it may be that someone in the meeting, no it is the case that there will be people in the meeting, who are troubled by certain things in their life, that they’re actually having difficulty getting a handle on in terms of self-discipline, things that are not best for them.

[25:04] Of one kind or another. I think what Paul’s saying in Romans 8 is, it’s not just a question of self-discipline, not just a question of, training the flesh to deal with it, but in actual fact, it’s if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh. You’ll live the kind of life that God wants you to live in terms of the enjoyment of sonship in Romans 8. Or, if you go to Galatians 5, where the works of the flesh are something that any one of us could fall into at any time.
That’s the point in Galatians 5. So we’re in a world of conflict and there is that conflict within us.
There’s the flesh and the spirit.
So what he’s, he’s not saying just walk a self-disciplined life and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
That’s not the approach to it.

[25:57] It is this, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
So does the spirit produce that self-discipline? Yes, I think he does.
But I think it’s important to see where the roots of that will be with us.
It’s not by natural disposition.
Some are more inclined to self-discipline than others.
Some sleep in longer, in the mornings.
Like students. Often. Or what? Millennials. Millennials.
Or pensioners, maybe. We might all have sort of a…
So the big thing is to recognize the Spirit of God within us, and for him and for that, for everything to do with that to be coming from inside.
This is sanctification in another sense from the inside out.
Very good.
Yeah, like the Pharisees may have been the most disciplined people around. Yeah, correct.
So we understand that discipline is not the end, just the means. Correct.
Yeah, very good. of that must be the Holy Spirit.

[27:04] So maybe we’ll just move in, just 20 or so minutes left, if I understand the time there.
Let’s just get into some of the areas of spiritual discipline.
I was thinking my Bible and I, so under that I have the discipline of reading.
Maybe you can help somebody who is like that, struggling to find the time, make the time for reading their Bible.
And then we’ll move through a few things. I have reading, meditating, memorizing, then studying.
We covered that last year, but just as far as establishing a discipline, I think we’d all agree, without which there is no godliness, without my Bible and I. So, reading, first of all.

[27:46] may help us.
Discipline for reading? As Ian said, things don’t happen by themselves, so we have to be energized by the Holy Spirit and then discipline ourselves.
We still understand that as we go on, the lives are busier and busier, although we get more things that help us.
You see, iPhones or whatever, electronics or travels. So the lives get busier and busier.
So that means in my daily routine, in my agenda, I should have time, specific time for Bible reading.

[28:29] For personal Bible study. That can be, if you are inclined, waking up in the morning, that can be in the morning.
Personally, I have it in the evening because I can stay up. Are you really safe?
No, I can have it during the day, but when everybody is in bed, I can have it in the evening.
I have it in the evening because everything is quiet and I’m quite up.
So the mornings are busy, kids going to school and all that.
So I personally, you know, this is not, I’m not talking of Bible study for preparing for the preaching or, you know.
I’m talking of my personal time.
I want to say that when I started, I don’t have a time with God, you know, but when you have a program and you read.
See, I have a program and you read the New Testament twice every year and once the Old Testament.
And you have passages, you can get that on internet or anywhere.
And that helps you to go through the reading.

[29:46] Very good, thank you. And it always seems to me that unless you have a system, for reading your Bible, you’re not gonna read it as much.
No, very good.
So I think that’s a great point. And there are various means by which you can read through the Bible.
Now, some people read through the Bible a whole lot quicker than others.
I mean, some people read it any number of times a year. I’m thinking what somebody told me once, and I found it hard to believe the number of times you read the Bible in a year, well I say good for him.
So, but not everybody’s like that. And so, you know, we all read the Bible at our own pace.
And there’s no point particularly reading it if it’s not profiting us.
So on a practical level we do that.
So, but unless we have a system for reading through the Bible, we won’t read through the Bible.
So whether it’s Robert Murray McShane’s thing or whether you say, I’ve got a thousand pages in my Bible, so I need to read however many pages a day, however you do it, do it.
However you do it, do it.
And make sure that you’ve got that discipline in your timetable to make sure you do, because we all eat during the day.
It doesn’t matter how busy you are, you eat.

[31:07] And we’re to desire the sincere milk of the word in order that we might grow thereby.
Man does not live by bread alone. No. By every word.
Yeah, so I think one of the things for me, just personally, I guess kind of vulnerably, is when you’re, before things get busy, before there are three toddlers running around and your night schedule, like your 5.30 a.m.
Time with the Lord and the espresso is nice and the sun is just coming up and everything’s just beautiful, might end up not being that.
It might end up being miserable because you didn’t have a good night and your kids were up or someone was sick.
So I think embracing the regimen, if I can use that, embracing the idea of a habit when it’s not, like when the espresso is cold or decaf, you know, and still just like reading the Bible because I have to understand that if I don’t read the Bible I’m not gonna grow and I’m not going to eat, right?
Like I think embracing the habit is so helpful when life gets chaotic or when you’re on jet lag, or jumping around to different parts.
Do I look that tired? No, no, no.
Well, you almost fell off the thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[32:19] Thanks.
Yeah, I think all of that is really, really, really important.
The biggest things in the Christian life are not going out to be a missionary.
When I was a kid, I used to hear missionary reports in London and I had this romantic notion that I’d love to go to Africa or India or somewhere, which in due course of time disappeared out of my system completely when I read about mosquitoes and other things.
But I also learned a thing, that the biggest thing in your Christian life is your daily fellowship with God, in which we hear his voice in his word, and he hears our voice when this heart cries to him.
So there is nothing bigger in the Christian life. So to me, the discipline of our daily reading and our daily time with the Lord.

[33:16] Is so important. It’s so important that you really need to be prepared to sacrifice just about anything else in order to do it. And nothing can take its place.
So like what you were saying there, Henri, with all the things we have today that are, kind of helpful, there is a sense in which technology is really, it makes us spread our time out in so many different ways. Like we live in an age where people can get a hold of us no, matter where we are. I mean, you used to be able to take yourself offline. It’s very difficult, basically, to take yourself offline. And so I think if we understand spiritual disciplines correctly, we understand that we have a helper, the Holy Spirit, who wants to make us godly.
And all of us, regardless of how busy we are, have enough time for these disciplines.
We just might not have enough time for all the rest of it.
Like there might be things that we have to cut out in order to read and- Yeah, have to be, have to be.

[34:20] Have to be some sort of protected time. Yeah, okay. Okay. you know, that you take, you know, from…

[34:27] 10, you know, or whatever it can be from 8 o’clock to 9 o’clock if you are a student.
Now, because I have three children and I said the mornings are always crazy.
When you have younger children, it’s not the mornings, every night might be crazy.
So again, you have to take and you say this 45 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever it is, I’m dedicated to the Lord. Now, I don’t want to be again, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever your time.
If you are on vacations, you might take two hours.
If you are a student and you are in summer, you are not working or whatever, you might take longer.
But you have to put on your agenda, on your schedule, on your diary.
This is my protective time. I switch off my phone and find a quiet place and I read my scripture.
Now, how you do it can be different systems as chronologically or whatever, But even how to imply to yourself can be other systems.
I don’t know if we’re going into that, or do you want to go, or how I read the Bible?
Sure. Okay, so some years ago, many years ago, I started to use notes, you know.

[35:52] I was young and using notes in the Bible. So if you read, this is not the Bible study, this is more a personal Bible reading.
So you read a chapter or two chapters, and then you start asking the chapters questions, at least four questions.
What tells about God? What tells about yourself? What tells about the Lord Jesus?
What tells about salvation?
And then this, these questions can be even enlarge. About yourself, is there any sin in your life that you see?
Is there a thing that you can change?
And so on. and then you write.

[36:30] On the margin of your Bible. I’ve developed some sort of system.
Now, this is not, again, this is not a Bible study where you see, this is daily reading.
It’s being fed for yourself, not trying to find out for others.
Now, that goes by default as well, but you know, so. And then another thing that has helped me, was as you meditate during the day, you might have some sort of thoughts.

[36:57] That you think, oh, that’s really precious, okay?
Now you have old phones today, we can write that and keeping that for later as you think of a verse or something that sometime can come in while you’re asleep, you know, you’re awake and then, oh yes, that’s very nice.
And you write it and you keep it into your Bible as a precious thought that maybe the Holy Spirit, has given that to you and that will carry on on you.
That’s really where I wanted to go.
I think we understand the need of reading, but maybe the lost art of meditating.
I think even sometimes using the word, people think of yoga or, or, or like therapy, you, know, Ken Ham, he posted like in his, on the Arc exhibits, taking back the rainbow.
I think we need to take back meditation, like, uh, meditation belongs to the Christianity.
It doesn’t belong to yoga.
You know, it belongs to us and it’s a biblical art. You know, you think of, uh, the Psalmist, Psalm 1, in thy law doth he meditate day and, night. So I think that suggestion is very helpful as far as how to meditate.
How many of us struggle when we read the Bible then get off and we’re done reading the Bible, maybe it’s breakfast, lunch, what’d you read? Oh, what did I read?
What did I read now, right?
And maybe if we spent, like you were saying there about how much you read, maybe if we We read a bit less, but meditated, asked questions of the text. we would.

[38:20] Yeah, and the difference between yoga or transcendental meditation that the Beatles used to be on about, Is it I think that all that’s to do with emptying your mind, isn’t it?
Yeah, whereas this is to do with a filling our mind with that which is good, There might there might be lots of people. It might be some people here. You’ve never read the Bible through, In a year say you’ve never done it. So I want to encourage you to do it yeah, I was I was preaching on this once in New Year conference in Manchester and, And I have this little thing that you need to read 3.25 chapters a day to get through the Bible in a year.
Well, everybody laughs at it at home because I say it so much, but 3.25 chapters a day will take you through the Bible.
No one reads 3.25 chapters, but if you read three chapters on three days and four on the fourth, and give a whole day to Psalm 119, of course, but adjust it just a little bit.
But that’s the kind of thing you’re reading. So about 18 months after I was in that part of England and a couple came up to me and they didn’t say, hello, how are you? They just said, it works, it works.

[39:25] And I didn’t know what they’re on about. I said, what works? So they’re saying about this conference. And I said to them, if you read through the Bible, if you read through it, it’ll become a new book to you. And they had just retired and together they read through the Bible in a year and they were full of it. So I just want to encourage that.
And so get the discipline, because not as an exercise in itself, but to what it produces, which is what we’re on about, because it produces that whole desire more to live a godly life.

[40:00] Yeah, meditation, someone has compared it, I think one of the Puritans compared it to lingering by a fire.
And I mean, you take somebody who on a cold day goes up to a fire and they just stand by it for a little bit, and then they say, oh, I’m still cold, versus somebody who’s lingering and really getting warm, right? Stewing over, percolating, I don’t know.
Like the idea of really absorbing, right? Like a teabag continually dipping in and letting the scriptures really do their work in us. And I really think that reading, I would totally, endorse that, reading through the Bible in a year. At the same time, I really think if, If you can read something and stew over it, think over it, meditate over it, this is a deep book, it’s a word of God.
There are depths to this book. How many times you’ve heard a preacher say, I never saw that before until last week.
I mean, there are depths to this book if we can just continually linger at the fire of the word of God.
And so that links in with studying. Which is another exercise and another discipline in itself.
Not just studying for meetings.
But studying because it’s God’s word. And not just simply saying, what is God saying to me in this?
To me, but the broader question, what is God saying?

[41:21] And to spend the time in it, I mean, that is such a time consuming exercise to study the word.
I want to say to all of us, all of us, I’m speaking to myself, but all of my younger brothers and sisters, you really need to get into Bible study, because in 30 years time, you will have the responsibility.
Less than that, comes quicker than that. And you need to be equipped and prepared for that, for maybe teaching, for you who will then be older women, teaching the younger women.
That’s not to do women’s meetings, to do with at home and in the environs that you’re in domestically and so on, teaching younger women, maybe in the home like Priscilla.
So the study of the word in detail and comprehending and noting and having systems to do that and, keeping at it is really, really important.
I said to Mr. John Riddle once, what’s the hardest thing you find in Bible study?
He said the first half hour.
Sometimes it’s breaking through barriers, getting into it, keeping at it.
Pretty important.

[42:43] Can I add, you know, as Ian was saying of responsibilities, you know, in 30 years or so, in 20 years, whatever, I’d like to underline even the timing.
Okay, you are a young one, young guy, young girl, you don’t have many responsibilities in life.
Maybe you are just married, you don’t have kids, you have only one kid.
And then number two comes, and number three comes.
And the hour, the day is only 24 hours. So, do it now, prepare, go to gym as much as you can now.

[43:21] And, you know, strangle your muscles and pursue godliness and train yourself into, you know, Bible reading and then we’ll have to pray, speak of prayer, you know, meditation.
And later on, you’ll start work, or if you have not started yet in the life, people like me, I film myself, I’m young, but people like me see how life busy is, and you guys have plenty of that time.
Yeah, I think, very good, very good, Andrei. We’ll move, that was very good to touch on studying, and we’ll move to prayer.
I just had here as well a word on memorization, also a lost art today. It seems that meditation would really help that. For some of us, it might just be, and I don’t mean to take pot shots, but the last time we memorized a verse was for the Sunday school treat. You understand that it is a command as well to hide the Word of God in your heart, that you may not sin against Him, that the sword of the Spirit is not the Bible in leather, it’s the Bible that you have in your heart. So I think memorizing is such a needed thing as well. Don’t have time to really go through that. Let’s go to this next one, prayer.
I think when it comes to the Bible, many of us, although we would like to see our Bible reading maybe shored up a bit, I think when it comes to prayer, we usually find ourselves ourselves flat on our face with how.

[44:45] Um, difficult it is to really pray, you know, not just bless my family, bless my kids, bless my grandkids, but pray.
And would you agree with this statement that a godly man is a praying man?
Um, and so any help on structures for prayer beyond just, you know, my personal needs, of course that’s necessary, but as a family, not even in the assembly, but for the assembly in private or for the work, the need for prayer.
I was telling someone just yesterday that there’s a brother in England, he was a Scots brother, but he lived in England called Mr. J.B. Hewitt.
You might have seen books that he’s done, Joe Hewitt.

[45:32] So when I was 13, he was staying in our house over the weekend for the Saturday Bible reading and the Sunday.
So, the next week I got a letter from him.
He said, dear Ian, blah, blah, blah, I will be praying for you every other Tuesday.
Which I thought was a bizarre thing when I was 13. I was very happy.
But every other Tuesday.
And I spoke later to somebody who knew him well, a lot of years later.
He said, oh, that’s what he did. He had a prayer list for every day.
And his young men prayer list was every other Tuesday. So he must’ve had 14 prayer lists, I think.

[46:12] Wow. So, you know, that’s one way that might appeal to people in the discipline of prayer.
But coming back to it, I think prayer is harder than Bible reading.
I really, really do. And I also think that it’s really, really important.
And as you say, there’s no godliness without prayer.
Actually, there’s not anything without prayer. and I think we’ve fallen down on this.
If I could just tell you this little story. I was sharing meetings in Scotland with Mr. Peter Brandon, who in more conservative assemblies had a bit of a reputation as being more open, and in more open assemblies had a reputation of being not open.
So he got knocked by both sides. He was one of the godliest men I ever knew.
So we were sharing these meetings and he said to me over a weekend, he said, Ian, before every meeting, I want you to come to my room and we’ll pray.

[47:18] So, we knelt at the side of his bed and Peter started praying.
I knew him well, he had brothers in our assembly, but he started praying and I had to say to the Lord quietly, I said, Lord, I have never learned to pray because what he had done in his life was cultivate an intimacy and a reverential closeness to the Lord like I don’t think, I’ve ever heard with anybody else.
And I went away, I really did say to the Lord, Lord, I just haven’t, I felt very reproved, that my prayer life was so second rate compared to what it could have been.
But it’s from prayer, the power in living, the power in service, and everything else comes from that communion with God in prayer.

[48:17] So it goes with that Bible reading, where we’re hearing God, but in prayer, God is hearing us.
And that communion between us and him is the thing that will lead to godliness.
Yeah, can I add, when Paul read to first Thessalonians, It’s prayer without ceasing.
So somebody called the doctor and said, the son has a cough, is coughing without ceasing.
It’s not that he starts coughing and is coughing 24-7 without any gaps between, but he is coughing continuously.
Prayer without ceasing means that my mind is enter the divine realm.
As we talked of the Holy Spirit having a grip on us.
And that means that my mind goes to be in fellowship, in communion, not only those 45 minutes that I have in the morning, but constantly to see, to walk in the presence of God.

[49:25] When I am in my car, when I am in the bus, you know, when I have a free moment in a way.
So to, as you said in the morning, to put God into my equation, or better, to put myself into the equation of God.
So pray without ceasing means having that fixed.

[49:45] So there’s like the idea of living in prayer, and so you’re talking about living in it.
And then there’s the idea of maybe a specific time of prayer, which our brother just mentioned that this brother had every Tuesday.
Then there’s the instant prayers. Like before I was opening this, just a, Lord help me, right? Nehemiah type prayer.
So in other words, prayer is life. Prayer is air.
And to not pray is to not breathe. Just like to not read is to not eat.
And so I hope it makes sense.
I think that’s very helpful, a prayer list.
I found myself, just to come to maybe something practical for the local assembly, I found myself struggling very much to pray in the weekly prayer meeting for needs if I’m not praying for those needs outside the weekly prayer meeting.
Seems like I just come and then gotta get burdened about it.
And I think that’s kind of where I was going as well. Not just praying, Lord, bless me and my family and this need and that need.
And confession of sin is another thing we haven’t covered, but that, as God speaks to you, praying that right when you notice it to confess that sin, but also praying for the believers, praying for the work.
I was touched by a verse in 2 Corinthians 1. The apostle tells those believers, you have helped me by your prayers.
That’s powerful that you can help the work by praying. And it’s not just a little nicety, you can actually help.

[51:09] So yeah, the need for prayer. We’re not going to get to my body and I, uh, that’s okay.
The communion, communion is the only way to godliness.
I think that’s okay to not get to my body. And I was thinking of our mind and that again, would touch on our, on what we’re reading, our eyes, we live in a world that is very visually provocative and to be, disciplined about our eyes.
Like the, like Job said, I’ve made a covenant with my eye, our tongue, the book of James, the discipline of our tongue.
But I hope that from this session we can at least take away this, that if we want to be godly, we must be disciplined in reading, meditating, studying, memorizing, and in prayer.
Communion is the powerhouse, and we neglect it to our peril.

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