Discipline

Discipline

So I have been thinking. Sometimes this is good and sometimes not so good. But I was thinking about discipline. It takes discipline to accomplish a number of things in life. If you want to be a good sports person, whatever the sport may be that you enjoy playing, you have to practice and practice and practice. In practicing, you learn certain skills that perhaps your opponents may already know or they may not know, but you train yourself to play to win.

When Bobby Fischer played chess he played and played and played. It was his astuteness in discovering how each piece played on the board. He studied games that he either played or watched and he learned all the right moves and strategies that it takes to win a chess game. He worked at it day in and day out. He was disciplined to win just as if he was playing a sport.

People have various work ethics. Some people work hard while other slough off any time they can. My wife is a disciplined worker. She gets up early in the morning and goes through the same routine in order to accomplish getting me up and my two sons to start our day. She feeds and waters the dog, she makes breakfast for the boys, she sets out our vitamins (chewable gummy bears, of course!), and this is all done right before she leaves to go to her office which is 20-25 minutes away. Once she arrives at work she puts her all into it. She works from the time she arrives until the time she leaves. She is disciplined and accomplishes a lot in one day.

My cardiologist told me that he wants me to start exercising. Every time he takes my blood pressure it’s right where it ought to be and I don’t even exercise! But still, he wants me to discipline myself in order that heart doesn’t fail me later in life…like next week. If I was disciplined enough to exercise, then I probably would not have the stress that plagues me at times and my cholesterol would be down and my blood pressure would be even better than what it is. But it takes discipline.

Disciplining a child accomplishes much also. It first accomplishes the setting of who’s in charge. Now that doesn’t mean that you spank your child just to show him that you are bigger than he is and you’re the one in charge. On the contrary, it establishes a boundary for you and your child. It also accomplishes the training of your child in the way that he should go. That is, he should be growing up to know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. When you discipline a child, you teach him what is true and what is false. Third, discipline accomplishes a healthy lifestyle for your child. That is, he will grow up respecting others and their property. He will do what is right and good and acceptable. In essence, he will grow in stature and favor with others. Finally, you teach your child that you love them by the discipline that you show and give them.

More importantly, when you discipline your child in the way that he should go, you will teach him about God. That’s right – you’ll teach him about God. Read what the writer of Hebrews says about God:

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” (Hebrews 12:4-6)

Discipline will take you far when you want to accomplish something. Discipline of your child will take him far if you recall the discipline that God gives you when you step out of line. It’s not that He is looking to zap you every time you sin. No, He loves you enough to set you on the right course. And to know what course that is, you need to discipline yourself to read and study His Word, the Bible. When you are disciplined in His Word, as a loving Father, He teaches you in the way that you should go. And, if you submit your will to Him, you shall not depart from Him but you will be there loving Him as He has loved you.

I Need a Break

Taking a Break

Have you ever just needed a break? I mean a really looooooooooong break? Hmm? I know that I’ve needed a break for quite sometime now. I know, I know, “Why do you need a break? Pastors only work a split shift on Sundays and a couple of hours on Wednesdays!” Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that one before! But I also realize that my work is never completed. It’s not completed until God says that it’s completed.

“But you do need to rest,” you’d say. That’s true. Without a good solid 6-8 hours of sleep a night there are all sorts of physical issues that can come up. With lack of sleep there is grumpiness (I’m not much of a morning person unless I wake up at the crack of noon!). With lack of sleep there are headaches. Without a good sleep there is loss of appetite. Chemicals in the body tend to get out of whack when you don’t have enough sleep. But this is not the type of rest of which I am speaking.

“But you do need to have an emotional break,” you’d say. Yes, that is true. Just this week I ministered to a family who almost lost their husband, father, brother, son. He went down at a house fire and suffered a major heart attack. As I am writing this he is getting ready to have a triple bypass heart surgery. Seeing the paramedics work on their friend and seeing the defibrillator doing its job was horrifying. As I spoke to his son yesterday, he said that he couldn’t get the images of his father down on the ground and them doing CPR on him. Sometimes you need an emotional break, but this is not the type of rest of which I am speaking.

The type of rest of which I am speaking is the rest of completion. This is the type of rest that the writer of Hebrews was admonishing his readers (or listeners) to enter into. The rest in Hebrews 3-4 is described as the Sabbath. Most of the time people think that this just means that they are not supposed to work but physically lounge around. The word “rest” in these chapters, however, indicate that something has been completed. The tasks that God has given to you to perform or to do need to be completed. And once they are completed, then the Sabbath rest comes. The Lord Jesus Christ was faithful to complete His work and He desires for us to do the same.

So think on this today:

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Paul the Apostle, Philippians 4:7-16

Sunday Review, February 24, 2013

Believe!

Sunday morning was a morning in the Book of Hebrews. We studied together Hebrews 4:11-16. It has been an encouragement to see how God’s Word exposes everything about us and it is by His Word that we can enter into His rest. His rest is not merely a place to lounge. His rest is not this type of rest. His rest is that of completion. So the writer of Hebrews is encouraging his readers to press on toward the prize of the high calling of Jesus Christ and not to drift away from believing in Him. Believe His Word! Believe His Son! (You can listen to the message by clicking here!)

The Passover Lamb

Sunday evening we were in Exodus 12. This introduces to us the Passover Lamb. Ultimately, we know that our Passover Lamb is Jesus Christ! When God told the Israelites to remember what He did on their behalf to free them from the bondage of Egypt, so Jesus told us to remember what He did by observing the Lord’s Supper on a regular basis. All of the things that God in the ten plagues against Egypt was to show the Israelites that He is God and that He is their God. (You can listen to the message by clicking here!)