The Training of the Soul

The Training of the Soul

Gaining the promises of God does not come naturally.

“You shall love the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:5

The worldview rooted in the Law of God is grounded in a compelling vision of God and His promises. In His Covenant, God bound Himself to Israel as a Father to His children, and He made known to them wonders and mysteries about Himself. God wanted Israel to know Him, because in knowing Him they would discover the fullness of life and purpose, their very reason for being. In addition, as we have seen, He held out to them precious and magnificent promises of blessing and abundance, which they would begin to realize in the land to which God was bringing them.

To know God and enjoy the promises of His Covenant: This is the essence of the worldview outlined for us in the Law of God. But gaining the promises of God, and living in His presence, did not come naturally. Israel was a sinful people, and sinful thoughts, attitudes, and priorities would incline them to seek their own interests rather than the good plans that God had prepared for them. If the people of God were ever going to know and enjoy Him, they would have to discipline themselves—beginning in their souls—for this new and so promising relationship.

Thus, in addition to the promises God made to His people, He also revealed what would be necessary on their parts in order to know and enjoy Him. Today we would group all that God requires of those who seek and pursue Him under the rubric of spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are those activities, deliberately and consistently engaged, by which the redeemed of the Lord enter into His presence and engage Him in His glory. Through the practice of spiritual disciplines the people of God are changed, inside and out, so that they may gain the maximum benefit from their relationship with the living God.

In this section of our study we will examine the spiritual disciplines God outlined for His people in His Law. Like the vision which was intended to capture the imaginations and win the devotion of His people, the spiritual disciplines which we find in the Law of God serve as a foundation and cornerstone for understanding everything else taught in the Scriptures about seeking and pursuing the Lord.

Gaining the promises of God does not come without discipline. The better we understand the disciplines God has prescribed for us in His Word, and the more consistent we are in using these, the more we can expect to know the Lord in His glory and to dwell within the promises He holds out for us and has fulfilled for us in Jesus Christ.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.