A man without self-control is like a city broken into and
left without walls (Proverbs 25:28 ESV).
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor 9:24-27 ESV).
We are sharing this message again as a reminder to encourage some brethren who became weak and lost their confidence in the Lord. Some just don't know where to begin to get their lives right with God. In desperation to conquer the spirit of anxiety and confusion, some Christians turned from the Lord to worldly pleasures and the Lord recently told us that such Christians are being driven further away from Him and His protection. Now, while there are countless articles on this subject by both Christians and non-Christians, our message is equally important for body of Christ we are called to minister to. Many well-meaning
Christians are struggling to walk faithfully before the Lord due to their lack
of self-discipline. In this brief work, we will look at critical areas in our
lives which will disqualify us from our Heavenly prize. Being ill-disciplined encourages unfaithfulness and it is like playing right into Satan's hands. He is a skilful deceiver, making countless Christians
think they always have enough time to make and live right with God until time
runs out on them. By faith we know that beyond this tent eternity is waiting (2 Corinthians 5:1) and if we lived obediently and
devoted to God, the rewards would be endless (Proverbs 12:28) but living without regard for God the consequences would be dire and irreversible (Romans 2:9). Consequently,our well-deserved
punishment would be as a result of ignoring the Holy Spirit when He pleaded
with us to reform our ways but we instead listened to the devil who whispered 'you
can do that later!' We must Beware, and straighten up and take good
note of our salvation. The Lord told us,
“No sloppy
Christians will enter Heaven”. The 'sloppy' Christian is rather living carelessly and particularly non-committal when it comes to the things of God. Sad, but true, some of these unsuspecting
brethren think they are pleasing to God when they go to church every Sunday and
give tithes. Frankly,
if we continue like that we are self-deceived! Like I said in a previous article God desires fruit,yes FRUIT!
Saved
by Grace to Do Works Proving Our Obedience to Christ
From the onset, those who proclaim a “feel good”
gospel often use the need satisfaction gospel as a selling point while failing to encouraging Christians to work out their salvation in fear and trembling
(Philippians 2:12). Such ministers tell people,
“you are saved by grace,” interpreting it to mean that you don’t have to do
anything else but just go to church on a Sunday, give your tithes, pursue your
career, send your children to Sunday school, take life easy, befriend the
world, live irresponsibly, be worldly and enjoy life. I also heard some saying that Christ did everything for
you, good! so it’s OK to be a sinner since you are saved by grace and your works will
not save you (Ephesians 2:8-9). What Paul meant in the preceding verse is very true; we will not be saved by our works. However, Paul here is referring to works
apart from Christ’s sacrifice. He means that if we reject Christ, our works
will not save us; our obedience to Christ Jesus should become our works (Titus
1:16). Kindly allow me to boldly state this: Christians who magnify the
grace doctrine have a healthy appetite for sin. They feel they don’t have to
work on their salvation, some whom the Lord commanded to pray and read Bible daily considered it as works.
How absurd! The same Paul stresses the importance of building onto the foundation
which is Christ (Ephesians 2:20-21). We are being built up through prayer, Bible
reading and good works that testify about our connection or union with Christ
Jesus (Jude 1:20; Acts 17:11; Ephesians 5:1-21). We show our
obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ by keeping His word, meaning doing the word
(John 14:15; John
14:23).
Let
us therefore stop being lazy and read the Bible for ourselves; this way we
will not be deceived by every wind of doctrine, but will be on guard against
error like the wise Bereans (Acts 17:11). One brother emailed me,
after the Lord told him to pray and read his Bible daily, saying that someone
told him that daily prayers and bible reading are works. How would he grow as a Christian if he is not going about his Father's business (Luke 2:49). Consequently, this brother would rather not obey the Lord because someone
he trusts more than the Lord told him not to obey the LORD by reading his bible and praying. He, like many other
people, listens to the opinions of other people more than what the Bible
commands. You may ask: what does this have to do with self-discipline? Well,
you will find out shortly!
How
to Exercise Self-discipline as a Christian
Briefly,
self-discipline is the ability to control one’s feelings and desires to
overcome self-deception and self-contentment. Our feelings run rampant within us, and as humans we
respond to any situation through our emotions, whether it be negative or
positive. Therefore, our emotions, which will determine our actions, should be
carefully balanced against the word of God. If we, for instance, obey our
feelings every time to respond to a given situation, this would result in us being
selfish and biased. Scripturally, self-discipline involves being under the
direction of the Holy Spirit and we know self-control tempers the severity of excessive behaviour (Galatians 5:22-23). Amongst our Christian duties, we must live to please God (Romans 7:4-6; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 5:10; Colossians
1:10).
As Christians, we are encouraged to apply self-discipline to every area of our lives,
including our thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:5), our
feelings (Leviticus 19:17-18; 1 Peter 2:11), our speech (Psalm
39:1; James 3:7-8), eating and drinking habits (Proverbs 23:2, 20; Amos 6:4-6;
Ephesians 5:18), and our sexual behaviour (1 Corinthians 7:9; 1 Thessalonians
4:4-5). When we consider the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we ought to apply and exercise
self-control in addition to our obedience to the Lord.
Furthermore,
it takes disciple to submit to correction (Psalm 141:5). We can't call ourselves a Christian when we are head-strong and not submissive to
a word of disciple for ill behaviour. If a well-meaning brother or sister uses the word of God us to corrects then it is God correcting us (Hebrews
3:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:11). Instead, we should humbly accept rebuke and
discipline our life's according to such correction!
Also, we should not
call ourselves a Christian when we run to some excuse every time when it is time
to pray, do Bible reading or witnessing (Luke 14:18-20; Exodus 4:10-14; Luke
9:59-62). Not only is this ill-discipline; our interest is clearly not
to please God but your own selfish ways.
Again, we should not call ourselves a Christian when we
complain to do the will of God; our attitude should just be obeying Him with a humble attitude and by faith (Philippians 2:14; Ephesians 5:1-20; 6:5-8).
“For it is God's will that by doing right you should put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).
Additionally, how can we say we are Christian when we disobey the Holy Spirit every time He
convicts us to avoid a certain decisions which may result in some questionable behaviour; He is correcting us to discipline
our lives according to Christ’s example.
When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin in our hearts and convicts us, we need to respond without delay and bring such
matter to God in prayer for deliverance. The Bible says "He who covers his sins will not
prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy." (Proverbs
28:13) Thus, if we discern the Spirit is convicting us, we don't resist Him, but we should submit to emerge as truly transformed God-fearing Christians. The Bible declares, "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden
your heart" (Hebrews 3:7-8, 15; 4:7) From experience, we learned that resisting
and ignoring the Holy Spirit could be consequential and this 'grieves' Him (Ephesians 4:30).
Exercise
Self-discipline Consistently
It is a fact, some of us are not good at self-coaching. We are prone to ignore our short-comings, and justifying our actions even when we are aware that our progress is not steady. Like we iterated in our previous articles many Christians are
being overcame by a spirit of laziness which results in procrastination they
never accomplish the things they set out to do for God. I have seen many men
who claimed to have heard from God to do some ministry work, but when such work
fails, they ramp up excuses. Caution, if your ministry fails because you were not on your guard (self-disciplined) (1 Peter 5:8), you need not look further
than your own attitude. Such failure occurs because we were disobedient and we failed to employ
Godly discipline and faithfulness (1 Corinthians 1:9). Biblically, a faithful person is someone who can
be trusted; and we are said to be faithful when we are seen doing what we promised
and are expected to do. If we continuously makes empty promises, relaxing through the false hope of excuses, are we not
ill-disciplined? If we don’t do against our own will what is Biblically expected of us, are we not
being ill-disciplined? Being self-disciplined is strictly going against the wishes of our own appetites and cravings in obedience to realising our mission (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).
Let's be honest, people often exercise self-discipline only when they need something, like the attending to strict training regimen to compete in some competition, and once
they succeeded and received what they needed, they return to their former ways. Under normal circumstances, we consider such people as being successful because they were self-disciplined; they faithfully applied and obeyed all the rules to accomplish their goals. In the Christian walk, we are encouraged to 'press on' in discipline to reach our goal of salvation (Philippians 3:14). Since we are weak and gives up easily, we often rely on
others to encourage and motivate us to achieve some goal, like dieting, achieving some
qualification or any personal ambition. In Christ, however, because of the promised glory, and the encouragement coming from the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit we
should exercise self-discipline (1Corinthians 9:24-27).
Within the
Christian race, we have holy rules to comply with, those rules forms part of our
“training” regimen. These rules are laid out for us in the entire Bible, and in
order for us to achieve the crown of life we must allow virtues of
self-discipline, faithfulness, holiness, obedience, love, purity,
fellowship with God, Godly manners and faith (2 Peter 1:5-11).
Personally, before
I received my breakthrough in the Lord some years ago, I also followed the Lord very inconsistently. Back then, I
committed myself to the Lord as the mood dictates, there might be many who follows a
similar pattern they pray when they feel like, they read the bible when we
feel like, they fellowship with the brethren when it suits them and they witness when
we like to. Additionally, some
even do right only selectively, not faithfully as God commanded. We may
quote the Scriptures at length to try and impress others and showing off our Bible
knowledge, but the most important thing
however, is how much of it are you applying?
Let us pose some direct question just for introspection, are you doing right selectively or perhaps when you are with Christians, but when you are alone or in the company of unbelievers you smother the truth and act just like the mockers? Also, do you act with integrity and self-discipline when others watch you, but when they not around, you show your true being? If so, we encourage you to STOP your deceitful ways and live by the truth for your own good. Remember, a deceitful Christian bears a bad testimony and no self-discipline is evident, but only a spirit of unfaithfulness and an unstable relationship with God.
Let us pose some direct question just for introspection, are you doing right selectively or perhaps when you are with Christians, but when you are alone or in the company of unbelievers you smother the truth and act just like the mockers? Also, do you act with integrity and self-discipline when others watch you, but when they not around, you show your true being? If so, we encourage you to STOP your deceitful ways and live by the truth for your own good. Remember, a deceitful Christian bears a bad testimony and no self-discipline is evident, but only a spirit of unfaithfulness and an unstable relationship with God.
In conclusion, self-disciplined Christians keep their word and promises even if it means you have to sacrifice a less important commitment (Psalm 15:4). We may also say that a well disciplined Christian has unquestionable good mannerism, friendly and never neglecting to follow and obey the Word of the Lord.
As always, we would like to extend an invitation to anyone who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ yet, or of you are not born again, to pray our suggested prayer on this link Prayer of Sincere Repentance by faith and follow the Lord (Matthew 4:19). You may also contact us for any questions or comments about this article or our ministry.
As always, we would like to extend an invitation to anyone who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ yet, or of you are not born again, to pray our suggested prayer on this link Prayer of Sincere Repentance by faith and follow the Lord (Matthew 4:19). You may also contact us for any questions or comments about this article or our ministry.
Blessed
grace and peace,
