Page 14 - Power Guide - January week 1 2019 FINAL

have regular morning rituals; but, some of the
earliest Jesus followers, known as the “Desert
Fathers and Mothers” developed a robust “seven
times a day I will praise You” (Psalm 119:164) daily
pattern that is still in use today among many
Christian monastic and neo-monastic communities
around the world. It is safe to say that since our
beginning, Christians have followed “regular” or
“ordered” ways of “doing daily life.” Our “freedom in
Christ” doesn’t mean we have the luxury to simply
ignore all that has gone before us without running
the risk of losing our roots and the wealth of
knowledge and wisdom that precedes us. We, as the
renowned physicist Isaac Newton said, “stand on the
shoulders of giants.”

Unfortunately, a fair number of people in the US
who identify as “Highly Religious,” live relatively
spiritually untethered lives, and do not consistently
follow any form of regular devotional or worship
practices beyond weekend service attendance,
occasionally praying or reading the Bible (approx. 40%,
of which only about 17% say they read the Bible daily
and pray, see: Pew Research on Religious Typography,
http://bit.ly/Pew2018).

The Bible, of course, sets out many practices or
“disciplines” for our benefit. Jesus and His disciples
followed the basic Jewish patterns of daily prayer,
festival celebration, and Sabbath (Friday sunset to
Saturday sunset) observance. Early Christian worship
liturgies (which often included both Saturday,
"Sabbath" observance AND Sunday, "Lord's Day"
observance), and devotional practice naturally grew
out of this same Jewish/Torah-following seedbed.

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