“Christians understand … [that] spiritual practices don’t justify us. They don’t save us. Rather, they refine our Christianity; they make the inheritance Christ gives us on the Cross more fully our own. The spiritual disciplines – such as regular prayer, and fasting, and tithing, and attentiveness to our bodies – can form us as Christians throughout our lives. Are we obliged to observe these disciplines? Not generally, no. Will they get us into heaven? They will not. Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not make us Christians. Instead, the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians. ... The ancient disciplines form us to respond to God, over and over always, in gratitude, in obedience, and in faith.”
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