Part One

"Abide In My Word"
(The Price of Discipline)

I don’t know anybody who particularly likes the word discipline. Yet I believe that a disciplined life is a happy life, especially if our motivation is right - if it is for God’s sake.

My second husband, Addison Leitch, spent many years on college campuses. And he observed that the happiest students were the musicians and the athletes, for they had voluntarily put themselves under authority.

When a student decides to join the marching band or the orchestra or to play football, he voluntarily puts himself under the authority of somebody who is going to tell him exactly what to do.

A football player is not doing "his own thing." He’s under the authority of the coach, who is under the authority of the rule book. The size of the field, the shape of the goalposts, the kind of ball - that has all been determined by somebody else.

When the orchestra plays Bach, each musician is under the authority of the conductor. And the conductor is under the authority of Bach himself. There is a score to follow - it’s somebody else’s direction.

To find success and fulfillment, both the football player and the orchestra member must be committed to obedience. And so must we, if we are to find fulfillment in our quest to know God.

What does it mean to know God? It means walking with Him, talking with Him, living with and for Him. It means trusting and obeying.

There are several reasons why we obey God. First, He is God. Second, He made us. And third, obedience is the only route to fulfillment. There is no greater joy than the realization, this is what I was made for. We are made to glorify God. He has made us in His image. So as we do the things we were made to do, as we obey Him, we find the fulfillment the world is so desperately and so futilely searching for.

How often have we heard people say, "I’d give anything in the world if I could play football like so and so," or "I’d give anything in the world if I could play the piano like that." Usually we mean that we would give anything but what it takes.

Would we give anything to know God, or is the price too high? Surrender is the price - learning the scales, practicing the game, toughening up. For us to surrender gladly to God’s discipline, we need to be absolutely convinced that we are loved with an everlasting love and that, even while we are being disciplined, underneath are the everlasting arms.

God says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19). Do you feel as if God has forsaken you today? Are you tempted to cry with the psalmist, "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" (Psalm 77:9). No, He loves you. Don’t imagine when you’re being disciplined by God that He doesn’t love you.

Discipline is surrender. And the only reason we surrender to another person is that we believe he knows something we don’t know and that he can help us do something we want to do. Certainly God knows far more than we do about our fulfillment and how we can reach it. And He can lead us to fulfillment in a way we could never achieve by ourselves.

God calls us, but we are free to disobey Him. The tides and the winds are not free to disobey. The storms occur at the bidding of God. But He has given us the power to choose to love and obey Him or to reject and disobey Him. My fulfillement depends on my answer to His call. Will I do what He wants me to do, or will I do my own thing?

You’ve probably heard John 8:32 quoted as often as I have: "The truth shall make you free." But there is an essential condition that prefaces these words of Jesus. He said, "If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Truth leads to freedom only when it is obeyed. Try telling the secular mind that liberation comes from obedience, from submission to authority, from discipline. To the world’s mind that makes no sense. But the Bible says that freedom lies on the far side of obedience.

The words disciple and discipline both come from the Latin word meaning "to learn." We are learners. Disciples are those who answer God’s call, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. I’ll do what you say." Discipline is a wholehearted yes, a glad surrender to our loving Master, whose will is our peace.

Second Timothy 1:7 says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind." A sound mind is a disciplined mind. The Spirit of God inspires self-discipline. There is no dichotomy between self-discipline and the Spirit of God. It is He who inspires us.

Paul goes on to tell Timothy, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God" (v.8).

Discipline is our response to God, our whole hearted yes to His will.

In the next issue of KTCB Part Two of this series Discovering Joy Through Discipline will examine "The Discipline of the Body."