Outward holiness – exhaling after inhaling the spiritual disciplines.  Learning and claiming how to be publicly faithful, publicly holy, publicly a child of God and follower of Jesus Christ – this is our holy work, and our joyful task.  God’s blessings this week!

Things like prayer, or fasting or Bible study.  They were known in John Wesley’s time as “instituted means of grace.”  Today, however, we take a leap in our conversation about spiritual disciplines, as we move to “prudential means of grace.”  “Prudential” from the word “prudence,” means involving and showing care and forethought in our management of our lives and resources.  What that means, is that we are going to spend some time talking about what it means to live with “outward holiness,” and living out “works of mercy,” instead of works of piety.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was convinced that these two pieces of our life of discipline were to be woven into each other.  Almost like inhaling and exhaling – we need to make sure we do an equal amount of both, or we’re in trouble!   The author, Steve Harper, quotes Walter Trobisch on the dangers of Christians becoming “spiritually bloated” – only taking in the internal grace of Christ, and never letting the love and grace flow out through their lives into the world.  So – we pray, we fast, we read the Bible, we worship, we are strengthened and filled by devotions and discipline that are brought into our lives and hearts – and THEN, we continue the work of Discipline by outwardly living what it means to be the hands and voice of Christ in our world. Breathe in, breathe out – there is wholeness to that way of living.

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Prudential means of grace from Dakotas UMC on Vimeo.