The Blogs: Becoming a Great Commandment Christian – Part 7 | Ed Gaskin

Spiritual Disciplines: Training in Love and Holiness

The Great Commandment calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But love like this does not come easily. It requires formation, training, and practice. Just as an athlete trains the body, so Christians are invited to train the soul through traditional spiritual practices—disciplines that open us to God’s transforming grace and shape us into people of holy love. Holiness without love becomes legalism, and love without holiness becomes sentimentality. But in the Great Commandment, holiness and love come together and express themselves in action.

The disciplines are not ends in themselves. They are means of grace, tools by which God forms us. Their purpose is singular: to help us become people who live out the Great Commandment.

Spiritual Formation and the Great Commandment

Throughout Christian history, mystics and spiritual guides have testified that the aim of the spiritual life is not merely moral improvement, but intimacy with God that transforms the soul into Christlikeness. In this transformation, the Great Commandment is not just a rule to obey but the shape of a whole life—loving God entirely and neighbor selflessly.

Augustine confessed a restless heart until it found rest in God, while Bernard of Clairvaux taught that the only true measure of loving God is to love Him without measure. Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Ávila reminded us that such love leads to joy and action—that prayer must issue in love. John of the Cross compressed the Christian vocation into one line: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

Brother Lawrence shows that even ordinary acts—washing dishes, sweeping floors—can be offered as love to God and service to neighbor. And Thomas Merton, writing in the 20th century, insisted that authentic spiritual growth always empties us of self-concern so that we may love sincerely and purely.

This stream of witness underscores that spiritual formation is fundamentally formation in love. To become a Great Commandment Christian is to cultivate habits of intimacy with God that overflow in love toward neighbor. The mystics remind us that love of God is not abstract—it is embodied in joyful obedience, small acts of kindness, and the willingness to lose ourselves in God’s love for the world.

Loving God with Our Hearts: Worship and Prayer

The heart is the seat of devotion and affection. To love God with our whole heart is to cultivate desire for God above all else.

Prayer teaches us dependence and intimacy. As Jesus withdrew often to pray, so do we learn to align our will with God’s.
Worship reorients our affections. In praise, we acknowledge God’s holiness and confess that God alone is worthy of love supreme.
Confession and repentance keep the heart tender, removing barriers of guilt and shame that hinder love.

Through prayer and worship, the Spirit enlarges our hearts, filling them with love for God and compassion for neighbor.

Loving God with Our Minds: Study and Meditation

To love God with the mind is to offer our intellect, curiosity, and thought life in service to God.

Scripture study grounds us in God’s story and teaches us how to discern truth from error.
Meditation slows us down, moving beyond information to transformation. As Psalm 1 describes, the one who delights in God’s law and meditates day and night becomes “like a tree planted by streams of water.”
Theological reflection helps us engage with culture, ethics, and doctrine with a posture of love rather than pride or partisanship.

Study without love puffs up, but study guided by the Spirit produces wisdom that loves God more deeply and equips us to love neighbor more wisely.

Loving God with Our Strength: Fasting, Simplicity, and Service

To love God with our strength is to bring our bodies, habits, and daily actions under the reign of God’s love.

Fasting disciplines our appetites, teaching us that “we do not live by bread alone.” It creates space for God’s presence and compassion for those who hunger.
Simplicity challenges consumerism and greed, freeing us to live generously.
Service channels physical energy into acts of care—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned.

When we offer our strength to God, our daily lives become living sacrifices, holy and pleasing in God’s sight (Romans 12:1).

Loving God with Our Soul: Silence, Solitude, and Sabbath

The soul is the deepest center of our being, the place of communion with God. To love God with our soul requires disciplines that nurture interior life.

Silence teaches us to listen for God’s still, small voice amid the noise.
Solitude draws us apart from distraction, reminding us our worth is found in God alone.
Sabbath roots us in God’s rhythm of rest, restoration, and worship.

These practices deepen our awareness of God’s presence, healing the soul and enlarging our capacity to love.

Loving Our Neighbor as Ourselves: Community Disciplines

The Great Commandment is not only vertical but horizontal. We love God by loving neighbor, and spiritual disciplines train us in this love as well.

Hospitality opens our homes and hearts to strangers, mirroring Christ’s welcome.
Fellowship reminds us that we cannot follow Jesus alone. In bearing one another’s burdens, we fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).
Peacemaking disciplines us to listen, forgive, and seek reconciliation.
Justice-seeking becomes a corporate discipline, as the Church learns to embody God’s concern for the poor and oppressed.

These practices root us in the communal life of love, where the image of God in each person is honored.

Conclusion: Disciplines of Love

The spiritual disciplines are not checklists for piety but pathways of love. They form us to love God fully—with heart, mind, soul, and strength—and to love our neighbor as ourselves. They remind us that holiness and love are inseparable: holiness without love becomes legalism, and love without holiness becomes sentimentality.

To be a Great Commandment Christian is to practice these disciplines faithfully, not for their own sake but so that God’s love may be perfected in us.

1 Timothy 4:7 – “Train yourself to be godly.”
Colossians 3:14 – “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”