I’m musing this morning on
discipline – Christian discipline. Not
the discipline of training a child in the way he should go – though as a
mother of young children, discipline of that sort requires much of my time and
sincere effort. Not the discipline that
a congregation exercises toward a member who walks in unrepentant sin (see 1
Cor. 5). I’m musing on what must be the
careful, disciplined life of the follower of Jesus Christ.
Are
you a Christian? Then you are a
disciple. “Discipline,” writes Elisabeth
Elliot, “is the disciple’s career.”[1] Christ gives those who would follow Him a
three-point assignment: 1) Deny yourself. 2) Take up your cross. 3) Follow Me (Matt. 16:24). We live in the 21st century in a
“free” and wealthy society. But we
cannot “coast” and claim we are Christ’s.
One who follows Him leaves self behind and enlists in spiritual warfare.
You and I each have sins against
which we must fight. Jesus died to save
us from those sins. Do I mean that He
saved us from the eternal punishment that was ours? Yes, but more than that. We are saved from our sins. Are you prone
to lust, whether lust of the sexual kind or lust for wealth or notoriety? Stop looking, stop coveting: you’ve been
saved from that. Are you quick to gossip
or to slander your neighbor? Shut your
mouth, and turn away from those who would whisper in your ear: you’ve been set
free from that (Romans 6:18). Are you
prone to outbursts at 8:15 on Monday morning when no one seems to know where
they put their other boot and the bell rings in 10 minutes? The fruit of the Savior’s Spirit is “love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… And those who are Christ’s have
crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24).
Consider 2 Peter 1:3-9:
“Grace and peace be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His
divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him
who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been
given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust. But also for this very reason,
giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to
knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to
godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For
if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted,
even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”
A
disciplined life is a fruitful life. Our
Lord said, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye
be my disciples” (John 15:8). The fruits
that a disciple brings forth are good works.
Our works don’t save us. “For by grace are ye saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works” (Eph. 2:8-10a). But God
“expects us to work, just as the designer of a precision instrument…expects the
thing to work. It is no great credit to
the instrument if it does.”[2]
Are you a follower of Jesus
Christ? Live a disciplined life, that
you might bear much fruit.
