What on earth is Contemplative Prayer?

One of the ‘spiritual disciplines’ taught today is called ‘prayer’. 

True prayer is simply talking to God, thanking Him, confessing sin, praising Him for Who He is, and asking Him for what we need. 

You cannot teach that, it comes naturally from a heart that seeks God. To attempt to teach it can mould it into a human effort that detracts from the simple straightforwardness that God desires. This is shown by Jesus, when he responded to the disciples request to 'teach them to pray' with a simple almost childlike example, with no formula or technique involved. 

There is a particular technique of prayer discipline that is taught called contemplative prayer, also referred to as meditative, formative or centering prayer. Contemplative prayer is not only a deceptive but a dangerous practice. 

Its purpose is to obtain a mystical experience with 'God' through a direct spiritual encounter. A quieting of the mind and thinking is taught, a coming into a state of silence, an invitation for ‘God' to speak and give you personal and specific revelation, outside of the Bible. 

This practice of entering quiet, and seeking a divine presence, is also taught in other religions. The spiritual experiences reported are identical! 

The focus is very much on the experience of what is being done; that if I feel peaceful (or powerful) and spiritual, then I must be. Satan is skilled at counterfeiting, and these experiences are substituting for true repenting before God that really will bring peace. 

These practices are being endorsed and taught in most mainstream churches and seminaries. People, including pastors, are often unaware of what exactly they are doing or recommending to others. It has an appearance of rightness to it. 

People do not know what is sound any more, because they are not grounded in the knowledge of the truth, which is found in the Scriptures alone, and not willing to submit to the authourity of God's revealed truth, and so are easily deceived. They are being tempted to substitute a 'god experience' found in these practices, for a humble walk of truth with God. 

Satan is providing a feeling of righteousness as people attempt to approach what they want to believe is God, but is actually a deceiving spirit. 2 Timothy 3 clearly states it is the holy Scriptures (the Old Testament) which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:17-18)

Knowing these things, we can grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord though simple trust in His power, and through humble obedience to the teachings and commandments He's already revealed to us in the Scripture.

What on earth is Spiritual Formation?

What is taught as 'spiritual formation' is a process of applying 'spiritual discipline' to train the 'flesh' or the 'natural man' to submit to a particular spiritual ideal.

These disciplines include some practices found in the Bible, such as praying to God and studying the Bible. For a believer, these things are not meant to be a discipline, but a delight. If they are not, then there are deeper issues to be addressed.

Spiritual disciplines are not in themselves 'christian', they are also taught in Buddhism, Hinduism, new age and muslim religions.

The idea of spiritual discipline is found in the Bible in the practices of the Pharisees. In their attempt to control their natural inclination to sin and disobey God's clear, straightforward laws, they devised 'fence laws', with the intent that if you would break any laws, it would be better to break one of these fence laws instead of one of God's laws.

Over time, the focus came off God's simple and straightforward teaching on how to live, from a heart humbled before Him, and the focus came onto obeying the fence laws as 'Law', equivalent to God's Law. This is what Jesus refuted in Matthew 23, when He told the religious leaders that their laws had 'nullified' God's Law.

They had set up these spiritual disciplines as the way to become acceptable to God. But there is NO amount of spiritual discipline that will make you acceptable to God. What pleases God is what comes from a 'broken and contrite heart', a heart fully aware that all our acts of spiritual discipline (our acts of 'righteousness') are like the filthy rags of Isaiah 64.

What is pleasing and acceptable to Him are not 'methods' or 'techniques' of religion, but acts gladly done from a heart that eagerly obeys GOD'S ways.

All the spiritual disciplines in the world won't make you right with God in the way He wants. They are deceiving in that they can make us feel 'spiritual' if we practice them, and in that state, we are less likely to see ourselves as we really are...utterly helpless and in need of God's constant protection.

We can never walk in human religious ways and please God, we must walk in His ways. True transformation does not happen through our efforts, it happens as the Spirit of God guides us, through the yielding of our will to God's, in obedience to His instruction (the Bible), in every situation and relationship of our lives.