The Real Reason We Don’t Practice Spiritual Disciplines

If coming up with excuses not to do things was a marketable skill, I’d have the best-looking resumé around. Take laundry, for instance. I never have more dishes to wash, books to read, shows to watch, or emails to return than when a mountain of clean laundry is piled on my bed waiting for assimilation and delivery. I don’t just have one reason for not doing the laundry; I have ten.

Unfortunately, my excuse-making proclivities aren’t limited to household chores. During most of my twenties, I used every excuse I could think of to avoid daily Bible reading and prayer. It was never one reason; it was ten. I was tired, I didn’t get anything from it, I was busy, I had laundry to do. Jesus said in John 15 that we must abide in him to grow, but I resisted God’s methods for abiding. I wanted growth, but I wanted it on my own terms.

After a decade of spiritual malnourishment, I eventually turned to the Word and prayer when my life took a hard turn. With shallow roots in the faith, I was unprepared for suffering. In the Lord’s kindness, He placed people in my life who pointed me to the Word, and the habits of grace eventually became patterns that shaped my days. Even so, all these years later I’m faced with the same question you face every morning when the alarm goes off: what reason will you give to avoid abiding in Christ?

Too Many Reasons Not to Abide

The real reason we don’t practice spiritual disciplines regularly is that we have too many reasons. And our reasons are excuses, a long litany of things we choose before we choose Christ. We don’t open our Bibles regularly or turn our hearts to the Lord in prayer because we can send a bucket down into a well of laziness and come up with a new justification for our avoidance every single day. But the bucket only brings up thinly veiled excuses for unbelief and impatience. We’re too busy (we value other things more than Scripture and prayer). We’re tired (we want physical rest more than spiritual rest). We don’t get anything out of it (we don’t value the lifelong investment of daily perseverance). It’s too hard (we’re lazy). We don’t have time (we desire instant results with minimal efforts). We’re afraid of legalism (so we give up intimacy with Christ in fear of sin).

All our excuses prove that we don’t really believe we need the Lord to become more like Him. Godliness doesn’t come merely because we age physically. We won’t wake up more mature in Christ one day simply because time has passed us by. If we’re not abiding in Him now, what hope do we have that we’ll be abiding in Him ten years from now?

Too Many Reasons to Abide

The road to growth in Christ is paved with stones of daily investment in our sanctification. God will finish the work He has begun in us as believers (see Phil. 1:6), but He does so through His chosen means of growth: prayer, His Word, and His church. God’s methods for our growth are the ones we need the most.

In Hebrews 10, the author describes the gifts we’ve been given to help us abide in Christ. Though the well of our excuses might seem bottomless, it doesn’t run nearly as deep as the well of reasons God has given us to hold fast and draw near to Him. The author of Hebrews wrote:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:19-22)

When Jesus paid for our sins at the cross, he gave us direct access to God the Father. No longer must we depend upon a priest to make sacrifices for our sins. Jesus’s sacrifice was enough to cover all our sins and reconcile us to God. We now have free access to draw close to God without shame or fear. We can pray to the Father at any time for any reason! This open access to God aids us in steadfast faith, bolstering our certainty that we are forgiven and loved by him. Talk to the Father because you can. Cast your worries, temptations, and fears at his feet. Jesus died so that you can stop spinning a web of fear or impatience or shame. He died so you can draw near to God with full assurance that you’ve been made new.

The author of Hebrew didn’t stop with prayer.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Heb. 10:23)

The confession of our hope is found in the words of the Bibles that sit dusty on our nightstands or coffee tables. How can we hold fast to our faith in Christ if we never examine what it is we’re holding fast to? Peter wrote that God has “granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises” (1 Pet. 1:3-4). It’s through the promises and knowledge of God in Scripture that we grow in godliness. We cannot grow in Christ without the soil of Scripture, the light of the Spirit, and the nourishment of prayer. God has faithfully supplied what we need for growth.

As we draw near to the Lord and hold fast to our faith through the help of the Spirit, God has also given us the church to aid in our growth.

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb. 10:24-25)

You might think that neglecting your Bible reading or prayer only affects you, but your church family depends upon your faithfulness, and you depend upon theirs. We sharpen one another’s faith when we hold fast to our confessions and intercede for one another. When I know that my sisters in Christ will show up to our weekly Bible study with days of study and prayer behind them, I am encouraged to come the same way. When I sing and pray and listen to the proclamation of the Word with my church family on Sundays, I leave stirred up to love Christ more than my long list of excuses. Their faithfulness feeds mine.

Abide by Abiding

How do you empty your well of excuses and fill it with reasons to hold fast through the Word and prayer? How do you abide in Christ when you have a dozen excuses to do something else instead?

Here’s the simple good news: you abide in Christ by abiding in Christ. The encouragement we need is found in the practices we avoid. To empty your well of reasons for avoiding the Lord, you fill it with Scripture and prayer. You hold the prescription in your hand. You have only to take it. Open your Bible and rehearse the gospel to yourself: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). God didn’t just make a way for you to be forgiven and freed. He also made a way for you to grow in godliness, to conquer sin, to hold fast to your faith, and to be encouraged along the way to glory.

Reading the Bible and praying aren’t done to earn good standing with God. We read and pray because we already have a good standing before him in Christ.  We read and pray so that we’ll hold tightly to that truth until we see him face-to-face. If you’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good, keep tasting His goodness (see Ps. 34:8). He is far sweeter than any of our excuses. Joy, peace, and steadfast faith are found in the practices God has given us to abide in him. We have far too many reasons to hold fast!

The real reason we don’t practice spiritual disciplines regularly is that we have too many reasons. And our reasons are excuses, a long litany of things we choose before we choose Christ. Share on X

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