Developing Spiritual Disciplines

What separates spiritually strong believers from those who constantly fall off? It's not talent, it's not charisma, it's not even how long they've been saved, it's discipline. There are so many people in the church buildings who are not saved. I'm gonna say it again. There are so many people in church buildings who go every Sunday, who are fans of Jesus, but not disciples. They're not transforming, they're not bearing good fruit, and they're staying in their sin cycles with no repentance, no conviction, and they're in dead religion. It doesn't matter how big the church is, how nice it is, how much money you give, or how many times you attend on Sundays, if you don't have a relationship with God and you're not transforming and bearing fruit, you cannot say you're one of His. The Bible says faith without works means it's dead, it was never faith. But the Bible says we are saved by grace, it's grace that we can even be saved through our faith. So if we have faith, we're saved by grace. But if we have faith, the grace that activates in our lives, the power of the Holy Spirit will lead us to produce good works, to transform, to renew our mind, to have discipline. So for those who are actually saved, this is a big issue.

They get saved, they give their life to Jesus, but they don't maintain. I call it the honeymoon stage. They go through the honeymoon stage, they have the encounter or the deliverance or the miracle healing or whatever it is, and God brings them in and hallelujah, they get caught like a fish. But through the cleanup of the fish, sorry, through the cleaning up of the fish, which is that process of sanctification, they don't discipline themselves and they fall back off. I've seen it. I've seen people on fire, evangelizing, casting out devils, three, four or five months. And then because they don't discipline their prayer life, their Bible reading life, they don't accept in their heart that this is for the rest of their lives, they go back to the world. Spiritual disciplines are habits that keep you rooted, sharp, and close to God, even when you don't feel anything. 1 Timothy 4, 7 says, "'Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.'" In other words, you won't drift into holiness, you train into it. So I know discipline doesn't sound exciting. You think of military, drill sergeant, more work, school, but it's the key to spiritual fire

that doesn't burn out. I always say this, do you wanna be a firecracker? Think about a firecracker. A firecracker explodes, a few seconds of wow, and then what happens? Done. I've seen a bunch of Christian firecrackers. They come, they do music, evangelism, on fire, preaching, teaching, children's ministry, armor bearer. They come, they walk in in their car, they're growing as a kingdom business, finance or whatever it is, and then boom, they burn out. And it's discipline that keeps you away from burning out and just being a firecracker. You wanna be a firecracker or a burning one, someone who constantly burns. So I'm gonna break that down. These are four core disciplines you need to develop if you're gonna grow strong in the spirit. Number one, daily time in the Word. The Word is your anchor, the Word is your sword, it's your foundation. You don't just read to check a box, you read to hear God. You should get excited to read the Word, and if you're not, you might need prayer for deliverance, you might need to just be obedient, and eventually you'll start learning. Because look, when I first came to Christ, I didn't wanna read the Bible. I wanted to, but I didn't,

because in the world, I didn't really read that much. I stopped reading after school, college. Even in college and high school, I didn't like to read. So when I came to Christ, and I'm like, man, I gotta read this Bible, it was hard, and I would be sitting there trying to read, can't focus. Trying to read, can't focus. Trying to read, thinking about things. But I learned from not giving up, I built that foundation to read the Bible. Like now, I love it, because I know I'm gonna get revelation. I'm learning about the God that I'm in relationship with. And so it's really important to hear God. Start with one chapter a day. Ask the Holy Spirit to highlight something. Meditate on it, speak it out loud, and apply it to your life. Remember, this is for the rest of your life, guys. You have given your life to Christ forever, right? It's transitioning to heaven. We're saved now. Reading the Word is beautiful, bro. It's like, there's like a scientific fact that those who read the Bible daily or weekly or something like that are more likely to be free, or to be depression-free, anxiety-free. Like I saw some type of scientific study. It's, and then like just in general, in their life, their life is better, they're more successful. When you're reading the Word of God,

look, reading every day is already good for you, right? Self-help books teach that. Read a book a week, whatever, read every day. But reading the Bible with understanding every day is like self-help on steroids. It's actually called transformation, not self-help. It's transformation, die to self, and you become more like Jesus. Number two, consistent prayer. Prayer isn't performance, it's relationship. You don't wait until you're a crisis to start praying. You make it part of your rhythm. So talk to God in the morning, in the car, on your lunch break, in the shower. Don't just talk, but also listen. Some of the deepest breakthroughs come in the still moments when you shut everything off. Prayer is extremely important. It's prayer is simple, communication with God. You speak and you listen, he speaks. And that's praying in the spirit is powerful, praying in tongues, your prayer language, praying and just talking to God, petitioning prayers. Prayer is a whole nother course I'm gonna have on intercessory and just prayer in general. But even meditation, meditating on his word, just being still and listening to the voice of God. God can speak to you and show you things. It's extremely important. Another one, fasting.

Fasting, this is part three, this is the third principle for discipline, fasting. Fasting weakens your flesh and strengthens your spirit. It's not just about skipping meals, it's about positioning your heart to hunger for God. Start with one meal or one meal or one day a week. Turn off the noise, cut out the distractions. For some of you, it might be, I'm gonna intermittent fast daily, meaning you're cutting out breakfast. Praise God, pray, sacrifice on the God. Beat down the flesh and be more in tune with the spirit. Turn off the noise, cut out the distractions. For some of you, it might be one day of complete water. That might be hard for you. For some of you, it might be three days, seven days, 21, 40, I've seen it. I've seen people do 40 days. I've seen people, man, I saw this girl on YouTube, she did like 100 days. I don't think that that was what God wanted, but she looked super skinny, but I'm not telling you to do that. What I'm saying is ask the Holy Spirit and challenge yourself, man. Be like, you know what? I'm gonna go deeper with God, deep crawl onto the deep. Go deeper with God. Say, I'm used to one days, let me do three, let me do seven. Man, watch how you catch breakthrough

when God reveals himself in a mighty way, right? So when you're fasting, use that time to seek God, confess sin, receive direction, and grow in discipline. Cut out the distractions and turn off the noise. And the last one, number four, is community and accountability. This is extremely important. I've met people who got baptized in the Holy Spirit, delivered from demons, on fire, evangelizing, and because they don't have a local community or a local church, they end up worse in the world. I'm telling you, the Bible says when demons come out, they go get seven more wicked spirits than itself and come back to find that vessel clean and swept. It's like if you got delivered from five demons, each one of those demons are going to get seven other wicked spirits. So just do the math. That's seven plus one for each demon. That's eight, eight times five. Do the math. That's 40 demons. You got delivered from five, 40 come back. That's crazy. You don't want that smoke. So stay connected, stay rooted, join a local church. You weren't built to walk this walk out alone. And that's what this international, our ROC, international community is good for. If you don't have a local church yet, join us.

We have the Bible studies. We have the prayer. We have courses. We're going to have international revival teams coming up soon. Join. You need people around you who challenge you, correct you, and sharpen you. Yes, you can be a digital revivalist, but always remember that a local church is better in person. The whole point of this walk is to do life with people, get discipleship, open up to a mature believer. You want to have someone that you can go to their house or sit down with them or get on a phone call or text, somebody that you can really grow with. Let someone ask you the hard questions, not to shame you, but to help you grow. The truth is discipline isn't legalism, it's training. If you don't train, you stay weak. If you stay carnal, you stay stuck. But if you build these disciplines, and I gave you four, you build a life that can carry the weight of your calling because God doesn't bless laziness, he blesses hunger. The Bible says laziness, a slothful spirit, literally can bring poverty into your life. The diligent prosper, but the lazy fall into traps of poverty, and hunger isn't a feeling, it's a lifestyle. It's not just hungering and being disciplined for physical things, it's also the word of God, prayer, going to work, making sure you're paying your bills,

paying off your debt. There's kingdom principles all in the word of God that you can read for success, and here's the challenge. Set a time every day, read the word. It's called a systematic Bible reading life. Create a space to pray, even if it's 10 minutes daily. Systematic prayer life, find a prayer room. Yes, you're a walking tabernacle, but you can find somewhere. Man, I was in my little, small little closet in West Palm Beach where all my wife and I's clothes were for a long time, and I caught some of the biggest breakthroughs and deliverances and healings and supernatural encounters with the presence of God in that small little closet. I'll never forget it. I forgave so many people in that closet. That closet, man, was such a, I used to be there all day, every day, literally. And now, you know, by the grace of God, the Lord has blessed us, me and my wife, with a prayer room where it's fully dedicated to God, where me and my wife, my family, my kids, we go in there to pray. We don't play about it. It's set apart. It's holy unto the Lord. We dedicated a whole room unto God in our home. And that's where we go to meet Jesus every day. Even though we are walking in secret places,

we can speak to God anywhere we go. We give him that time. So make it 10 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day. An hour a day, systematic prayer life. I used to read my word in that closet. Sometimes I'd go downstairs and read the word on the, I used to have a little front, a front little, a small little porch area. Choose a day to fast each week, weekly fasting. Pick one day out the week where you give it to God. It could be a Sunday, Saturday, where you say, God, this is your day. I'm not eating from sundown to sunset. Pick a time. Last time you ate was 10 p.m. on Friday. Next time you're eating is 10 p.m. on Saturday. Give him a whole full 24 hours and pray and just love on him and just be like, God, I do this because I love you, not for religion. Find a believer who walks with you, not just claps for you. Again, very important, accountability. This is how revival becomes a lifestyle. This is how passion becomes maturity and this is how you become unshakable. Let's keep building. Praise God, I'll see you in the next lesson.