Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (Google eBook)

Richard J. Foster

HarperCollins, Oct 5, 1988 - Religion - 256 pages

In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be.

Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found.

Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God.

Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.

What people are saying

Review: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

User Review  - Chas Bayfield - Goodreads

This is the best Christian book I have read. It has been life changing. I vaguely knew of the disciplines but had never thought about many of them. It made me question how I live my life and what my ...

Review: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

User Review  - Stephen - Goodreads

I like Richard Foster's books.

Dallas Willard REVIEWS

Editorial Review - dwillard.org

Christianity Today has selected Renovation of the Heart as the winner of their 2003 Book Award in the category of Spirituality. They describe the book as ...

Contents

• Door to Liberation: 1
• Meditation: 15
• Prayer: 33
• Fasting: 47
• Study: 62
• Simplicity: 79
• Solitude: 96
• Submission: 110
• Service: 126
• Confession: 143
• Worship: 158
• Guidance: 175
• Celebration: 190
• Comments in Celebration of Celebration of Discipline: 202
• Notes: 211
• Bibliography: 219

Popular passages

Page 85 - And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?‎

Page 81 - No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.‎

Page 85 - Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?‎

Page 55 - My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.‎

Page 68 - All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.‎

Page 125 - Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.‎

Page 61 - Jesus. •Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.‎

Page 116 - For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.‎

Page 167 - By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.‎

Page 9 - For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.‎

About the author

Richard J. Foster is the author of several bestselling books, including Celebration of Discipline, Streams of Living Water, Life with God, and Prayer, which was Christianity Today's Book of the Year and the winner of the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. He is the founder of RenovarÉ, an organization and a movement committed to the renewal of the church of Jesus Christ in all its multifaceted expressions, and the editor of The Life with God Bible.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
• Author: Richard J. Foster
• Edition: 25, illustrated, revised, annotated
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 1988
• ISBN: 0060628391, 9780060628390
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Christian life; Religion / Christian Life / General; Religion / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth; Religion / Christian Theology / General; Religion / Inspirational; Religion / Spirituality; Spiritual life; Spiritual life - Christianity; Spiritual life/ Christianity