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Comments: I saw this book a few years back on one of our pastors' bookshelves, browsed it and thought it looked interesting. As a result, I was glad when our weekly Life Group chose to take the six-week series based on it. And take it we did - read the text, watched the DVD, did the workbook, discussed the questions and generally earned our merit badges.
It's a decent book on a topic for which there's generally no shortage of books. It's neither the best nor the worst, and offered some useful insights on the classic spiritual disciplines (prayer, scripture reading, meditation, fasting and so on).
I did appreciate Ortberg's very first chapter, in which he made it clear that the pursuit of discipline is not about earning God's favor, but is in fact very pragmatic - it's a means to an end. At the end of the day, it's not about how many items we've checked off our spiritual "to-do" list, but rather whether we've increased our love of God and those around us. The disciplines have value to the extent that they help us accomplish this.
While you may find the book profitable, you might want to skip the study guide entirely. Not only does it proceed out of sequence with the textbook, it just lacked depth on a lot of key points. It was nice that it led us to look up supporting scriptures, but there were some strange cases where it tried to force-fit a passage to a topic it was simply never meant to address. (I'm sorry, the story of Balaam and his donkey is not about learning to seek God's will).
Study guide aside, give this book a solid B, and read it when you get time. Or better yet, try a classic like Richard Foster's "A Celebration of Discipline".
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