The following excerpts from Whitley’s book, explain the first chapter. But before that, the following 3 minute video will acquaint you with Whitney and also give you a taste of his teaching, in this instance, Proverbs 7.
My purpose is to discuss meditation, but I didn’t want to jump right to that subject. It is discussed in his third chapter, so, what is written below seems foundational to my purpose; he provided many wonderful encouragements, as he explained what Christian discipline encompasses.
[Emboldening and square brackets are mine. The following paragraphs have been copied and pasted, much text is missing between each of them, thus, the book explains the following ideas much more fully than I have via these excerpts.]
The Spiritual Disciplines are those practices found in Scripture that promote spiritual growth among believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are the habits of devotion and experiential Christianity that have been practiced by the people of God since biblical times. The Disciplines could be described in several ways….
For example, Christians should read and study the Word of God on their own (personal Spiritual Disciplines), but they should also hear the Bible read and study it with the church (interpersonal Spiritual Disciplines). Christians should worship God privately, but they should also worship Him publicly with His people. Some Spiritual Disciplines are by nature practiced alone, such as journaling, solitude, and fasting (though individuals sometimes fast in conjunction with a congregational fast). Other Disciplines are by nature congregational, such as fellowship, hearing God’s Word preached, and participation in the Lord’s Supper—all of which require the presence of people….
Both the personal and interpersonal Disciplines are means of blessings for followers of Jesus and a part of growth in godliness, for the Bible teaches both….
Second, Spiritual Disciplines are activities, not attitudes. Disciplines are practices, not character qualities, graces, or “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23). Disciplines are things you do—such as read, meditate, pray, fast, worship, serve, learn, and so on….
Joy, strictly speaking, is not a Spiritual Discipline, because joy is something you experience, not something you do. Fasting itself is not the goal; rather joy is part of the goal of fasting, because joy is a Christlike quality. Joy does not come to you if you are spiritually passive; rather, joy is cultivated, but joy is cultivated by things you do. And the “things you do” that cultivate Christlike joy are the Spiritual Disciplines….
…that the following personal Spiritual Disciplines are commended in Scripture: Bible intake, prayer, worship, evangelism, service, stewardship, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, and learning. Is this an exhaustive list? No….
Fourth, this book takes the position that the Spiritual Disciplines found in Scripture are sufficient for knowing and experiencing God, and for growing in Christlikeness….
Fifth, the Spiritual Disciplines are practices derived from the gospel, not divorced from the gospel. When the Disciplines are rightly practiced, they take us deeper into the gospel of Jesus and its glories, not away from it as though we’ve moved on to more advanced levels of Christianity….
Sixth, the Spiritual Disciplines are means, not ends. The end—that is, the purpose of practicing the Disciplines—is godliness. I define godliness as both closeness to Christ and conformity to Christ, a conformity that’s both inward and outward, a growing conformity to both the heart of Christ and the life of Christ. This Christlikeness is the goal, the reason we should practice the Disciplines….
That purpose is godliness. Thus we are told in 1 Timothy 4:7 to discipline ourselves “for the purpose of godliness” (NASB). That’s what the godly heroes of Christian history have done. From biblical times to our time, godly people have always been spiritually disciplined people. Call to mind some heroes of church history, people such as Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Lady Huntingdon, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Lottie Moon, George Müller, Dawson Trotman, Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. How did they develop such a reputation for godliness? It wasn’t as though God somehow anointed them with holiness in ways He hasn’t bestowed on the rest of us. It may be true that He blessed these believers in terms of ministry fruitfulness in ways that He hasn’t conferred upon many others, but in terms of conformity to Christ, they made progress the same way that all Christians do—through the Spiritual Disciplines….
Actually, God uses three primary catalysts for changing us and conforming us to Christlikeness, but only one is largely under our control…Proverbs 27:17, “and one man sharpens another.” Sometimes God uses our friends to sharpen us into more Christlike living, and sometimes He uses our enemies to file away our rough, ungodly edges….
Another change agent God uses in our lives is circumstances. The classic text for this is Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
…Then there is the catalyst of the Spiritual Disciplines. This catalyst differs from the first two in that when He uses the Disciplines, God works primarily from the inside out. When He changes us through people and circumstances, the process works mainly from the outside in. The Spiritual Disciplines also differ from the other two methods of change in that God grants us a greater measure of choice regarding involvement with the Disciplines…Disciplines. We often have little choice regarding the people and circumstances God brings into our lives, but we can decide, for example, whether we will read the Bible or fast today….
So on the one hand, we recognize that even the most iron-willed self-discipline by itself will not make us more holy; instead, it may make us more like the Pharisees. Growth in holiness is a gift from God (see John 17:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 2:11). On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that we’re to do nothing to pursue godliness, just living the life we want until and unless God decides to make us holy. What we are to do is discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness, practicing the God-given Spiritual Disciplines as a means of receiving His grace and growing in Christlikeness.
…a deep, insatiable hunger for the Bible is a gift from God, but we are the ones who must turn the pages and read the words. God doesn’t pull our passive bodies over to the desk and cause our hands to open the Bible and draw our eyes back and forth over the pages without any effort on our part….
The expectation of disciplined spirituality is implied in Jesus’ offer of Matthew 11:29: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” The same is true in this offer of discipleship: “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23). These verses tell us that to be a disciple of Jesus means, at the very least, to learn from and follow Him….
…many professing Christians are spiritually undisciplined and seem to have little Christlike fruit and power in their lives. However, many of them are remarkably disciplined in other areas of their lives.
[Consider the things you love and give much time to perfecting. Is learning a disciplined Christian life one of them?]
The greatest danger of neglecting the Spiritual Disciplines is the danger of missing God—forever; not because personal piety earns anyone a place in heaven, but because it characterizes those who are on their way there. In other words, some who fail to practice the Disciplines disregard them because they simply have no appetite for them….
Anyone who’s ever tried to play [guitar] realizes that such musical liberty and flair with a guitar comes only from decades of disciplined practice. Likewise, freedom through discipline is seen not only in proficient musicians, but also in all-star shortstops, expert carpenters, successful executives, skilled craftsmen, excellent students, and moms who daily manage home and family well….
Freedom through discipline is the idea behind what has become known as “the ten-thousand-hour rule.” This is an observation based upon research indicating that to become an expert in anything, for anything to become second nature, you must perform that activity—such as playing the guitar—for at least ten thousand hours. And it’s not just a matter of repeating an identical task—such as playing the same song—for something like four hours per day, five days per week, fifty weeks per year for ten years; rather there must also be a deliberate, ongoing effort (usually under the guidance of another) to improve overall performance….
In one sense we might call discipline “the price” we must pay for freedom. But Elisabeth Elliot is more precise when she explains that “freedom and discipline have come to be regarded as mutually exclusive, when in fact freedom is not at all the opposite, but the final reward, of discipline.” So while stressing that freedom requires discipline, let us not forget to emphasize that discipline rewards us with freedom….
Or we may sense some liberation from self-centeredness while engaged in Disciplines such as worship, service, and evangelism. The freedom of godliness is the freedom to do what God calls us through Scripture to do and the freedom to express the character qualities of Christ through our own personality. This kind of freedom is the “reward” or result of the blessing of God upon our engagement in the Spiritual Disciplines….
Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 1–20). The Navigators. Kindle Edition.