The Actual Discipline God Wants

The true Christian life is a life of discipline.

1 Corinthians 9:25-27 NLT — All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

My flesh wants discipline in the wrong way... It wants to work on being good for God.  What Paul is describing here isn't that at all!

Paul is describing a discipline of humility... Yielding my thoughts, emotions, and will to God so He can totally possess me for HIS purposes.

**Lazy with thoughts = thinking like a man.  Looking for the way that seems best to me to do what God wants done.  This is the original sin!  On its own, my flesh avoids a cross, looks for natural strength, and uses the most efficient means to get things done.  These are all contrary to the kingdom of God.  God's kingdom crucifies the arrogance of man's independence, uses foolish things to shame the wisdom of man, and is a kingdom of patience and faith. 

Matthew 16:21-24 NLT — From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.

If I'm not careful, I'll be lazy with my thoughts and take the good things God wants into my own corrupt ways.  That is the spirit of antichrist: man trying to do what only God can.

**Lazy with my emotions - my flesh feels like a victim of the sin in the world when it is, in fact, one of the perpetrators of sin!  If I am not disciplined in my emotions, I believe my own delusional reasons for why I am anxious, afraid, greedy, doubtful, selfish, depressed, etc.  I have no real reason for any of these.  God made me, he takes care of me, has a life planned for me, provides for me, etc.  if I am disciplined, I bring my fallen emotions to God like they are enemies.  I trade my reasons for anxiety for his reasons for peace, my reasons for depression for His reason for gratitude, my reasons for discouragement for His reasons for joy, etc.  my emotions are the main door to sin in my life:

Genesis 4:6-7 NLT — “Why are you so angry?” the LORD asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”

**Lazy with my will - my flesh has a will of its own... Apart from my thoughts and my emotions, there is a way (will) that always seems right but ends in the wrong. 

Jesus... Even Jesus!!... Prayed "not my will but yours, Father." If this isn't my thoughts numerous times a day, then I am delusionally going my own way.  There are so many choices we make each day. Unless I discipline myself to really believe I don't know what to do, my will on autopilot will make mess of  Yeshua's will all around me.  Believing I don't know what to do is a faith choice, not a logic one!  Noah would have never built an ark unless he, in faith, yielded his will to God.  What is God wanting to lead me into that doesn't make sense to me?!  

James 4:1-6 NLT — What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the spirit God has placed within us is filled with envy? But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,

“God opposes the proud

but favors the humble.”

My flesh wants discipline to mean me "getting better at doing the right thing." The Bible talks of the discipline of learning to truly believe I cannot do the right thing and growing in the strength to seek, listen to, and conform my life to what God thinks, feels, and does.  That is a BIG difference!

Galatians 5:16-26 NLT — So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

People who constantly clarify their good intentions have not nailed their flesh to the cross. Those who know their intentions naturally run against the grain of God's kingdom stop justifying themselves and come clean with God.  Then God leads them in ways they didn't think we're good, but they change and change the world around them!  

It really is that simple.