The Benefit of Spiritual Disciplines • 1 Timothy 4:1-10
By Bobby McKay
What is your favorite junk food snack? Potato chips, cookies, and ice cream are all popular choices. I find popcorn to be a good treat while watching television at night or reading. The next time you grab a bag, bucket, or box of your desired snack, try this challenge: only take one bite. Only eat one small cookie, one single potato chip, or one teaspoon-sized sampling of ice cream.
Talk about torture! One of the primary reasons behind snacking, to begin with, is to slightly indulge. Someone once said, “Willpower is the ability to eat one salted peanut.” Some tests of strength require more discipline than others.
In a world where there seems to be little constraint of any type, discipline is almost a lost practice in our society today. Churches are not exempt from this trend. Too many in our churches today are jockeying for position and power and never take the time to develop the godly habits required for maturity and intimacy with the Father.
There is a type of discipline reserved for each of us when we habitually disobey God, but the sort of discipline our lesson discusses this week is the type we should seek to impose on ourselves. Think of these spiritual disciplines as the habits needed to cultivate in your relationship with God.
Each of us has good (and probably not so good) habits we practice each day. In our biblical text, the Apostle Paul is making plain to young Timothy the kinds of obstacles he will face in later days. The evidence of these difficult times is seen in the fact that some will abandon their faith and fall victim to deception, and the frequency of hypocritical teachers.
These false teachers will create their own set of rules for others to follow and abandon the truths of God’s word. This was a gimmick seen in the unnecessary rules and burdens of the Pharisees. These false teachers and hypocrites sought to twist the things and blessings of God. Two such examples of this in our text this week are marriage and food.
Especially here in the South, marriage and food are two of the things we enjoy the most and are staples in our culture. Both are gifts and blessings from God meant to be enjoyed. The marriage between and man and a woman is part of God’s original design for the foundation of the family.
Jesus visited wedding celebrations and joined in the festivities. These false teachers were also condemning what people ate. They taught people should abstain from certain foods. Marriage and food are gifts from God to us. We should enjoy both without fear of legalism.
Once we receive the good gifts bestowed to us by God, we should have a response. The appropriate response is thanksgiving. We are two months removed from the Thanksgiving holiday, but our gratitude should never wane. The gifts given to us reflect the goodness and love of the giver — in this case, God.
First Tim. 4:6 is a great reminder to “point these things out to each other.” The “things” to which Paul is referring are the word of God and prayer. In a world that seems to have gone off the rails, Christians need to return to those two simple yet powerful areas.
Too many were succumbing to myths and old wives’ tales in Paul’s day, and too many are guilty of the same thing today. You have many people who are more inclined to score political points or deliver a jab to someone than to pursue the truth of God’s word and pray for one another.
The remedy? 1 Tim. 4:7. Timothy was instructed to train himself in godliness. With so much evil in the world, godliness is desperately needed (and I would say missing) in the lives of our churches and their members. We cannot expect any better from a lost world if we as the salt and light are not showing them what God looks like.
What specific areas in your spiritual life are out of shape? The spiritual disciplines we will study the next few weeks will help you train to become more like Jesus. If you really want to resemble Jesus, you will need to set goals, be intentional, and also be willing to give and receive the grace and forgiveness needed.
As we strive to be more like Christ, the Father will reveal to us where we need the most help to live a life of godliness. A godly life is possible! Enjoy your next snack and let us determine to be more like Jesus.
McKay is pastor of Pleasant Grove Church, Brookhaven.
