A rule of life will help you pursue spiritual health as you abide in Jesus.

Spiritual health is not something that just happens but it’s something that you can invest in, work towards, and pursue, all in dependence on the Holy Spirit. By way of analogy, pursuing spiritual health is similar to how people pursue physical health.

Think about it: there are two different ways people experience physical health. On one hand, there is what you might call the ‘reactive’ approach to being healthy. After you are already sick, you react by visiting the GP, taking medication, having surgery, and so on. In these examples, you are taking the good and necessary steps to treat an illness that is already present within you.

But there is also a ‘proactive’ approach to pursuing health, and this approach is probably more important and more neglected. Before you get sick and need interventions, you take steps to regularly maintain health. You exercise. You eat a balanced diet. You get good rest. You take appropriate vitamins. These are regular and simple things that you do so that your body can experience as much health as possible. Doing these things doesn’t mean you’ll never be sick, but regularly practising them means your body will be more prepared to contend with illness and your ability to enjoy life will increase.

Saying this, there are seasons in our spiritual lives when we need to react to spiritual sickness (what the Bible calls sin, and its effects in the world). In these seasons, practices like confession and reconciliation are indispensable, but, throughout your spiritual life, you can also pursue health—closeness to the Triune God—by engaging with certain habits, or spiritual practices, that enable you to experience God more and more every day and to reflect him in the world, and this is called a rule of life.

A rule of life doesn’t make someone a Christian. A rule of life is not a way to earn more of God’s love or grace in your life. Keeping to a rule of life does not make you a better Christian than anyone else. What a rule of life does, simply, is help you pursue and experience spiritual health.

I can do no better than John Mark Comer’s definition: a rule of life is simply a schedule and a set of practices that help you keep abiding in Jesus as the central passion of your life.

Sometimes people ask, ‘Is the idea of a rule of life in the Bible?’ There is no verse in the Bible that says, ‛Thou shalt have a rule of life’. But there are plenty of verses and images in the Bible that lead us to conclude that a rule of life is an important part of Christian discipleship.

Jesus, for example, seemed to have regular patterns of praying and seeking the Father: ‛Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed’ (Mark 1v35). This habit of quiet time and prayer for Jesus was not a one-time thing but something he did morning by morning (cf Isaiah 50v4).

However, the best description of a rule of life comes not from Jesus’ example, but from his teaching. John 15 is one of the most glorious passages in the New Testament on the heart of the Christian life. The essence of the Christian life is not merely knowing things about Jesus, or even doing things for Jesus. The heart of the Christian life is being with Jesus, abiding in him. That’s what Jesus is teaching in John 15: Abide in me, as I also abide in you (v4).

To illustrate his point, Jesus uses a metaphor to help us understand what abiding in him entails. He says, I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (15v5). Jesus is teaching his followers that their abiding in him is like a branch abiding in a vine.

If you have ever been to a vineyard and seen a vine growing, you know that a vine is a particular kind of plant that requires care and structure if it is to grow and be fruitful. Specifically, a vine needs a trellis. A trellis is a sturdy structure that supports and facilitates the vine’s growth. Without a trellis, the vine would be a jumbled mess on the ground. Though that vine has the potential for great fruitfulness, without a trellis the vine would never grow and flourish.

Like a fruitful vine, you need a trellis, some kind of structure, that facilitates your abiding in Jesus. That’s how you should think about a rule of life: it’s the trellis of your spiritual life. Your rule of life is simply a schedule and spiritual practices that help you abide in Jesus every day.

Finally, a foundational teaching throughout the New Testament is that a Christian is wholly dependent on Jesus for everything. Without him, you can do nothing. That means that even as you incorporate a rule of life, you do so only through the grace of Jesus and with the power of the Holy Spirit. A rule of life is not your own effort to keep you in God’s favour. As Rich Villodas said, your rule of life is ‘not a to-do list, but a formation framework… a collection of Spirit-empowered practices’ that help a person discern God’s presence in their life. Creating and keeping a rule of life should not be a point of pride, but a springboard for gratitude to the Spirit who awakens faith in the first place.

That’s what this booklet is for; to help you begin thinking about what a rule of life can look like for you.

Begin by thinking about your weekly and daily schedule. Weekly, are you setting aside time for rest, or what the Bible calls sabbath? Rest is a Christian counter-cultural practice in which a person quiets their soul and silences the need for constant performance and productivity. Christian ‘rest’ is not laziness or bingeing your latest favourite show, but an active settling of the soul before God to get more of him. There’s a whole section in this booklet on the practice of sabbath, to help you develop habits of rest in your regular schedule. Then, as you look at your daily schedule, ask the Spirit to help you discern what kind of rhythm would best help you connect with God and live his grace.

Now, as you know, schedules change throughout different stages of life, so it’s likely that a rule of life might vary through life’s different seasons! Therefore, there needs to be some flexibility or possibility for adaptation in your rule of life. Also, remember, everyone is different & everyone’s schedules are different! I love the advice of Martyn Lloyd-Jones who once advised a group of Christian leaders, ‘Know thyself!’ Some people can do more focused work for ½ hour late at night than they could do for two hours in the morning. Some of you are just not morning people; others of you haven’t stayed up past 10pm in a long time! However God has made you, embrace it, and build your rule of life around it.

In addition, there’s great value in protecting some time each day when you are not connected to your phone or other technology.

When you look at your schedule, one thing you are trying to do is declutter from your days and weeks the things that are unnecessary which numb your soul to God. The other thing you are trying to do is create space so that spiritual practices can become a regular habit in your life.

Some spiritual practices are inward, specifically focused on helping you experience communion with God. Other practices are outward, which direct your life towards other people, to the church, and to the needs of the world.

This booklet is focused on four of the inward spiritual practices: sabbath, prayer, Bible reading, and fasting. In future iterations of this booklet, we’ll be including outward-facing spiritual practices: worship, generosity, service, and community.

Whether or not spiritual practices are brand new to you, this booklet has something that will help you engage with them, and perhaps widen your gaze to some practices that might be neglected in your life right now.