15. Practitioner's Podcast: 7 Habits of a Disciple

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Good morning Justin. Good morning. Welcome back everybody Tony. Thinking about habits today. Cause there were episodes. So I got our random question. That's slightly less random today. what is one habit maybe a bad habit that you would like to get rid of or that you have gotten rid of in the recent history maybe the past six months or so.

so I'm a little embarrassed to say this out loud but it's just between me and you. So D dear friends here just the two of us. I'm going to tell you the very honest God's truth. I have a really bad habit of biting my nails specifically my fingernails not toenails. That would be a whole different level of bad habit specifically.

I do it in the car. So I'll get into car. And I'm at a stoplight or something like that. And and I I just crush my fingernails and I hate that about myself. Cause it feels unclean. And I feel like I should. I'm 41 at some point in my life. I should be past it. But here we are. Here we are. so for me I'm really excited because last year after years probably of trying I was finally successful in kicking my mountain Dew habit used to have a mountain Dew definitely a few times a week.

there was periods where it was every day. but I haven't had a mountain Dews since June. So I'm really excited about that. Yeah. I shared something really personal and intimate and you shared one successful one. There's gotta be another habit that you want to get rid of in your life. That feels a little bit more equally.

Hi. I don't think there is. What about correcting me? Can we put that on the list somewhere? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. thinking about well I will. So moving ahead. I'd like to do less social media. I'll say that to be on it less. Okay. All right. That's exceptionally vulnerable but that's all I got for you.

It's not exceptionally vulnerable. It's actually very popular right now but you're you've always been really. popularity guy I'm super trendy super trendy. I couldn't think of the word me. I was like you've always been super trendy which is neither here nor there. w Justin introduced the idea of habits to us today.

Yeah. So today we're talking about the seven habits of a disciple. so this conversation I think is really gonna be helpful for people who have. Already making disciples people who are young and being disciples too cause it's really an episode about discipleship. but before we even get into that we got to talk about habits right?

Habits are super important because they automate our life and they are kind of the grooves of the tracks that our train runs in as we move through our lives together. And so if we can spend. The time and effort that we need to put in to develop habits that are helpful. it really just moves us ahead in those areas of our lives that where we're trying to be intentional.

And so the habits that we're going to be talking about today are seven habits of a disciple that will help you grow and mature. Into not only a mature disciple but also to a mature disciple maker. Well you and you know what's interesting is we're going to talk about seven but the truth is is that any habit that you decide to own and pick up will drastically change your life if you commit to it.

And so habits are really a blessing because what they do is they prevent you from checking out of Of relationships they prevent you from checking out of routines. One of the things I tell couples all the time is that most people don't fall in and out of love. They fall in and out of commitment. And it's not commitment to the relationship.

Obviously that's the bigger picture but it's typically commitment to the habits or the disciplines of the relationship. So when couples break up it's not because one day they woke up and they're like man I'm mad at my wife. I'm going to break up. No. What ends up happening is is we end up. Kind of separating our lives over the years because we've given up the good habits of a healthy relationship.

And so when we talk about discipleship what we're talking about are the helpful habits. These seven traits seven basic habits are all centered around seven things you can do to keep a healthy relationship with God. Now you don't have to do all seven but eventually I think most of us would say. We want to get to all seven and and that's part of of how we build the relationship with our.

Yeah. Yeah that's wonderful. I love that idea about commitment right? And so if we're going to be committed to our relationship with God then it takes some work. It takes some intentionality and those intentional habits will drive us towards intentional and intimate relationship with God. But it's a commitment right around that commitment to doing those things and to showing up consistently so that we can have that outcome that we're looking for.

which is an intimate relationship with God Tony before we started you came up with a kind of a equation to talk about this. Can you share that with us? Yeah I intentional habits plus intentional time equal an intimate relationship right? Intentional habits. Excuse me let me say this again.

Intentional habits. Plus an intimate time can help us. Lead us to an intimate relationship. and let me explain this a little bit because I know first of all I kind of garbled that up a bit but habits are really important because they keep us in track but intentionality in those habits in intimacy in those habits lead us to an intimate relationship.

So so let me elaborate why you can't rush intimacy. You can't rush intimacy. So if you want this intimate relationship with God you can't show up day one and just expect it to be there and to be present in an automatically assume that everything's going to click. There are so many times that I read scripture and it doesn't feel intimate but then on occasion when I'm intentional in my habit and I created some intimate time.

There's this intimate part of our relationship where I feel like I see God in a whole different level and I let God see me. Not that God can't anyway he's got of course he can but I let God see me. I open up to this intimacy in a deeper way that that strengthens who we are or who I am as a follower of Christ.

Does that make sense? Yeah I love that. That's really good. That's a good way to think about and a good way to say it. so as we get into these seven basics I want to just acknowledge we've referenced these before in season one episode eight the the title of that episode was disciplines of a disciple but we're going to go a little bit more in depth on these today.

And Tony why don't I just walk through the seven I'll kind of name them and then talk about how how that impacts you and maybe one or two that you really. Feel a lot of growth or intimacy from as you engage that with God. Okay. So these came to me actually as a young disciple the person who was discipling me and I got a lot of this stuff when I was being discipled because I wasn't discipled with curriculum or through a book a curriculum sort of way.

I was just given stuff that was passed down through spiritual generations. And you know fortunately for me I have some some heavy hitters in my spiritual lineage such as Leroy IMEs Dawson Trotman. And so again I don't know that these came from him but they very well could have come from one or both of those guys.

so the first one it's always first is assurance of salvation or the gospel right? Another way to label that as the gospel. so. that is always first the other six are in no particular order. so just in the ordering that we have it today the second would be a quiet time. So that daily devotional time in the word and in prayer that you would have with God the third one is prayer.

the fourth one is witnessing or sharing our faith with others with others that don't yet know Jesus or follow him. the fifth one is fellowship or we might say community today. just those quality in depth relationships that we have with other believers. And we kind of referenced and talked all around that.

In the last episode of our podcast here the six one is scripture memory. So memorizing chunks or verses of scripture and really hiding it in your heart. And the seventh one is Bible study. So really in-depth intentional inductive sort of Bible study would be the seventh. So again I'll run through those shipments at salvation or the gospel.

Quiet time prayer witnessing fellowship scripture memory and Bible study. Tony what's what's your reaction to this this list of seven? well I I would say that I've been very fortunate like you to be discipled by some pretty incredible people and quiet time and prayer were probably. The first two places where I started to really build intimacy with God.

They're the easiest Jesus models them all throughout scripture. you know we kind of see over and over again Jesus with his quiet time prayer is is you know something that you can do communally and then fellowship is always something I've been pretty good at. Now. The rest of these kind of steps outside of the assurance of salvation which I've never really wrestled with.

Are different in different seasons have meant different things for me. So I I always do a quiet time and I always do a prayer time. I don't normally have to worry about fellowship. I don't normally have to worry about witnessing all those. Sometimes I can become a little insulated but scripture memory and Bible study are the two when I'm really feeling disconnected from God that I'll lean into to build up some some intimacy.

and and typically I have to go old school. I have to go paper right? When. went on our silent retreat. last year this was one of those things for me where I I pulled out my paper Bible. I wrote in the margins. I you know I did some things differently and it really created that intimacy. So in this particular case it was less about a habit but more about an intentional practice for a given period of time.

So I don't know w w what seems to hit most. Yeah for me. the gospels one that really helps keep me centered and focused. so not as much on that the assurance of salvation but more of who am I in Christ and what are the messages that the gospel gives to me? each and every day I think it was Jerry Bridges that popularized the idea of.

preaching the gospel to yourself every day and what that does it really helps because it reminds us that we're sinners but it also reminds us that that God loves us so deeply. And so we we can tend to drift between feeling self-conscious or unworthy or feeling too confident and too worthy. And so the gospel kind of keeps us centered in the middle there of no I am a center.

But I'm saved by grace and God loves me tremendously for who I am. And as a result I can move forward. So that's normally a big one for me. The other one is scripture memory. so for me scripture memory has always been. Kind of where I where I get fed the most from the habit of memorizing but also review and just doing prayer times through scriptures that I am memorizing or have memorized in the past really has helped me.

to grow and to develop some deep roots in my faith. now there is one I want to ask you oh oh go ahead. No go ahead. I was going to ask you this question too. So there's one that's always a stretch for me on this list. and the one that's that's normally a stretch. Is the witnessing one. when I think about consistent communication of the gospel now consistent modeling of the gospel living out the gospel.

That's not as much of a stretch but consistently talking about the gospel talking about Jesus with those people in my life that don't yet know him. that's normally a stretch and a challenge for me and and having it on the list really helps. Continue to put that in front of me and to move me in that direction.

So is there one of those for you Tony? That there's one that's consistently a stretch for you? Oh it's scripture memory. It's scripture memory every day of the week. And twice when you asked me about it in our meetings and you know it's it's the idea of scripture memory is always really great. And I don't have any problems with the idea that but I do have not always been great about.

Putting that practice into my life on a regular basis because if you're going to do scripture memory well it requires kind of a the same way that you would do prayer while it requires a kind of a pray without ceasing memorizing without ceasing kind of mentality. Right. You've got to continually pick it up and flex that muscle like going to the gym.

It's gotta be one of those habits that fills in the cracks of our day that or maybe there's some dead time or something like that. And that's. You know that that's always been a little bit of a difficult time for me. but you know it's a growing edge and and I'm always there are a lot of relationships that I'm in where there are spaces in that relationship that I struggle with.

And I just consider it a privilege that this is one and in my relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Well thanks for sharing that. so if you're if you're listening to this and you're discipling somebody especially younger believer these are things that you can move through and you can move through these topics with people at varying levels of depth right?

So you could talk about prayer at a 1 0 1 sort of level but you could have prayer 2 0 1 3 0 1 4 0 1 graduate school level in terms of talking about. What does prayer how does it work? What are we doing? And discipling. We have to remember that our goal is not education it's transformation. And so just because you've covered something or talked about it if it's not showing up yet in that person's life if they're not being obedient to the scriptures in that area then you know there's more there there's more meat on that bone that you need to go back to as a disciple maker and continue to help them with that.

And so this is a really helpful list as you think about well what could I do. With the person I'm discipling what are the things that they might need help with now Tony you said earlier that intentional habits plus intentional time can help lead us to an intentional relationship. So I totally agree with that.

I love that. How how you've communicated about that is is there a way that we can be engaging in these habits and not have intimacy develop? Yes. Yes. I think when we create the the intentional time without the intimacy what ends up happening is we're just checking the block off. You know what I mean?

We're we're checking out. So one of the things that I'm really passionate about and I'm going to get on my soap box a little bit is that we have to create these disciplines these habits. With the mindset of intimacy into me. See right into me. See. Into my heart. So God really cares about the posture of your heart right?

And we see that in the way that Jesus preached. We see that in the way that Jesus did life with people he wanted to transform someone's heart. So if you're doing a quiet time and you're like Hey I'm going to take 15 minutes and do a quiet time. And you read through your devotional you read through your chapter or whatever you're reading and you don't ask the holy spirit to be in your heart.

If you don't invite the holy spirit in if you don't intentionally. Like surrender some of these things then you don't have. Right. You don't have that intimacy same thing with scripture memory you can have the entire Bible memorized but if you're not asking God for those words to penetrate your heart you know what's first Corinthians 13 tells us or just the claiming of a symbol or a rusty gate.

You know those are kind of the things that when we think about these. Habits these disciplines. What we're talking about is is creating intimate time. So so some of my tips for intimate time are music. If you're a music person let the music in let it light a candle. I use the same space just about every day and that space has become intimate space to me because God has done some things there.

And I always start by asking the holy spirit to fill up this space in place and to lead. Through these habits. what are some of the ways that you build intimacy? Yeah I love you know really just slowing down. So for me it's it's catching up internally with what I'm trying to do externally. And so I do that through prayer.

so when I first am in that space with God I just try to stop and to calm down my thoughts. You know to focus on him so that I can be present with him. So I'm not just checking a box. And I think anyone that's tried to follow Jesus for any amount of time you know that experience where you you are taking the time because you want intimacy and you want these intentional habits but you you end up just going through the motions and checking the box and that's that's not what we're trying to do.

Right. So. The disciplines or the habits they're means to an end. They're not the end themselves. And so we have to really be aware and cognizant of all right. Well yeah I know. I got my reading plan here. I'm trying to get through the Bible in a year or whatever it is but if that's not if you feel like you're sitting down and praying and God is is asking you just to spend time with him that day.

You know it's better to do that because you're developing that intimacy through connecting with him not through accomplishing a plan. Right. And so that's for me the biggest thing is as I'm trying to develop intimacy it's taking time to slow down to pray to check in with where I'm at. And to be honest with God with where I'm at and to allow that to lead into my habit.

I love it. I love it. So many good things here. Show many nuggets of truth that we all need to remember. Let me give you the takeaway for today's episode intentional habits. Plus intimate time can help lead us to an intimate relationship with the Lord intentional habits. Plus intentional time can help lead us to an intimate relationship with the Lord.

So your action step is simple but not easy. Evaluate your intimacy level with. By doing an intentional habit inventory out of the seven that we listed. How many are you doing? Right. How many are challenging? Or are you just going through the motions? No judgment either way but is there a way that intentional habits plus intimate time can help build your intimate relationship with God as always?

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