Self-Help vs. Spiritual Discipline

by Tim Hunter

Check out any bookstore and one thing will be in common. Self-help books - lots of them.

“Believe in yourself”, “Follow your heart”, “look inward to find strength”, and a plethora of other catchy slogans drive much of our culture’s thinking. There is an inherent desire within us to improve ourselves.

Open the Bible, and we will also find commands to improve and better ourselves. For example:

1 Timothy 4v7b - “Rather, train yourself for godliness...”

Or.

Philippians 3v12 - “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

So which is it? Are scripture and pop culture books speaking the same language? Is it wrong to desire to achieve, or become stronger, or improve oneself?

No.

But - I believe there is a world of difference in self-help and in spiritual discipline. I believe that one path leads to life to the full in the language of Jesus, and one leads to a bankrupted life.

Self-help aims at creating who you are, while spiritual discipline uncovers who we have already been created to be in Christ. Self-help paints the individual as the solution to their own problems, spiritual disciplines paint the Holy Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus as the answer.

The Christian message is simple: we are not good enough, hence we require an external force (namely God made flesh in His son Jesus) to attain what we never could.

Self-help (as a rule) sends the opposite message: we have the necessary tools internally to achieve or accomplish all that we want to be - hence we can attain anything and everything by elevating self.

An Identity Issue

It may seem like I am splitting hairs here, but there is actually a world of difference, a heaven and hell kind of difference between looking towards one-self for the source of help and looking to Jesus as the source of help.

But if we are not careful we can blur the two: we can cloak self-help in Christian language, and we can do spiritual disciplines in a way that will also lead to frustration and failure.

And I believe it all boils down to an identity issue.

I think Christians should work hard at improving and innovating and becoming flat out better people. I am not arguing for some kind of sit back and never try to go on a diet, never try to do a Bible plan, never pray kind of life.

I’m just saying that if it doesn’t flow from the right source it will all be in vain.
Pastor Bryan Shippy said it like this: “self-discipline apart from identity in Jesus is called self-help.”

See, all of our efforts must flow from an understanding that our identity is already sealed in Christ. We battle for holiness because we already are made holy, we pray because we realize we are already accepted by God, we exert effort not in an attempt to impress God but from the understanding that we have already been permanently loved and accepted by Him through the Gospel of Jesus.

Our identity as a believer in Jesus is fixed, therefore our spiritual disciplines are simply a way to step into experientally what our identity already is.

Spiritual disciplines flow from identity, self-help attempts to create identity.

One path leads to life to the full, one leads to frustration and sin.

Train Better rather than Try Harder

So, we must discipline ourselves not to gain an identity but rather because we have already been given an identity. Our identity is secure in the gospel so through spiritual discipline we are simply stepping into the life that Jesus has already secured for us.

I would argue our response to this would be to train ourselves unto godliness, rather than simply gritting our teeth and trying really hard.

Training through the spiritual disciplines looks like taking advantage of the means of grace that we have at our disposal and ordering our lives around them in order to step into progression in our discipleship and walk with Jesus.

Trying harder looks like desperately trying to just do better. In my experience it will lead to frustration and burnout.

I say this from experience. I am a type-A personality and highly competitive. If I am not careful I can put myself on the throne of my life and lean into rhythms of self-help instead of spiritual discipline.

But if I believe what I claim about the gospel - the answers to my problems and failures are not found in me but in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Therefore I must order my life around Him, and step into rhythms that will lead me deeper in surrender to God and not reliance on self.

Easier said than done.
I hope this makes sense - self-help or spiritual discipline.

I will leave you with this passage: 1 Corinthians 15v10 - “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Wow. Wonderful.

Everything the apostle Paul did was by the grace of God, but this did not lead him into less discipline and hard work but rather into more.

And it was all through the grace of God. I believe this is the heart of the difference between self-help and spiritual discipline. One flows from the grace of God, and the other scrapes and claws based on the efforts of self.

So friends, let's discipline ourselves. Let’s step into the spiritual disciplines, let’s be rigorous in our pursuit of advancement in progression in our spiritual formation.

But may it all flow from the Grace of God, and not from the Strength of Self.

Blessings.