Week 32 Sunday
Week 32 Sunday
A Disciplined Life
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
We turn now to the truth that must be set over against the one we have been considering. We have been saying that the first law of life is receptivity, to know how to accept what Life offers to us.
A soldier asked Lilian Eubank in a USO club, “What kind of vitamins do you take?” He explained, “I have watched you for a month, and it does not matter how confusing a situation you are in, how disagreeable the people you are with, you always have a smile and a cheery word. I can’t understand it.”
She said, “It isn’t a vitamin at all, but a philosophy of life, that one has to smile when he or she really believes basically that everything works together for good—if you let it.”*
That is the point—if you let it. If you know how to be receptive and responsive to God and let God work things out for you.
But to do that we must learn to be disciplined persons. While the Way is the way of dependence, drawing strength from Another, nevertheless, in order to do that we must be disciplined. Very often “free grace” has been preached in such a way that it has weakened character. Paul warns against this in these words, “Do not make your freedom an opening for the flesh” (Gal. 5:13 Moffatt). Here, liberty had become license. Discipline was needed.
The acceptance of grace is a privilege, a blessed privilege, provided it is permeated with discipline. Dependence plus discipline equals dependable disciples. This combination was shown in this incident in which God apparently showed a sense of humor. A woman writes that she had been healed, gloriously healed of paralysis in the legs and arthritis when she surrendered it all to God. Then she said, “Now Lord, you’ve healed me, what are you going to do about my overweight?” The answer, “This kind goeth not out save by fasting.” Where only dependence could heal, that was the answer. Where only discipline could heal, that was the answer. The balanced life is the Way. The Christian is blessedly balanced.
Discipline, then, is not a turning into an unnatural, screwy type of person, but it does mean that the forces of life are not unharnessed forces that roam everywhere and get nowhere, except into trouble. They are harnessed to God’s ends; they are disciplined.
O disciplined Christ, so disciplined and yet so free, teach me your secret. For only as I am disciplined can I dance the dance of freedom. I want my powers to be at the disposal of the highest. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Happy are they who follow his injunctions, giving him undivided hearts” (Ps. 119:2 Moffatt).
*This is most likely Lilian Eubank, director of religious education at the United Baptist Church, who became assistant director of the USO club in Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1943.
Week 32 Monday
The Way Is the Way of Discipline
1 Corinthians 9:23-27
The Way is the way of discipline. Yesterday I saw a beautiful elm tree that had been blown over in a storm because some of the roots had strangled the tree. They had twined around the base of the tree underground, so that the very things intended to sustain the tree had strangled it.
Our natural urges are given to sustain us, but if they get out of place they can strangle us. Sex dedicated to God is sustaining. But sex out of place, an end in itself, coils about the rest of life and strangles it. Self dedicated to God is sustaining, but if the self becomes the center of life it can strangle the personality. The trouble with the roots of that fallen tree was that, instead of reaching out beyond themselves, they turned back on themselves and the trunk. They were not disciplined to their original purpose. The natural became the unnatural.
Dr. Charles Mayo, one of the greatest surgeons of the world, came into a room dragging one of his legs clumsily. A friend of mine asked him about it. He replied, “There is a passage in the Bible that says, ‘They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.’ I saw this coming on, but I would not pay heed.”* He had not disciplined himself to the advice he gave to others, and he dragged a lame leg through life as the result. Many of us are dragging ourselves lamely through life because we would not be disciplined to what we knew. They tell us that civilization depends upon nine inches of topsoil on the earth; if that goes, we go with it. And yet we have wasted those precious nine inches with the result that millions languish upon eroded, impoverished lands, and gain a precarious living in dust bowls. The lack of discipline strikes back in undernourished bodies and decaying civilizations. Our personal lack of discipline strikes back at us in impoverished souls and bodies and in a decaying spiritual life. Be disciplined or be decadent.
I glanced up from my writing on a train and saw on a lever these words, “Lift up to release.” We have to lift up to release. If we think we can turn our powers to lower purposes and be free, we are mistaken. You have to lift up to release.
O Christ, help me to lift up my powers to your purposes and your plans; then I shall be released and free. I am blinded by local clamorings. Give me the long look and the far-seeing purpose. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “I am the Eternal . . . training you for your good” (Isa. 48:17 Moffatt).
*No published source was found for this quotation.
Week 32 Tuesday
Discipline Produces Spontaneity
1 Corinthians 10:23-24, 31-33
The Way has been called “The Christian discipline.” “The aim of the Christian discipline is the love that springs from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5 Moffatt). Strange that the end of discipline is defined as spontaneity—“love that springs”—but that is the end of discipline, to make you free.
There is a false idea of freedom prevalent in modern civilization, “You are free to do as you like.” The Christian answer is, “You are free to do as you ought.” Said a high school boy to his principal, “Sir, they say that this is a free country. But where’s my freedom? They tell me to go to school, and I have to do it; to study or to go home, and I have to do it. Where’s my freedom?” He was serious, and in serious trouble with himself. A returned soldier, rebuked for something he said, replied, “I have fought over there to say and do exactly as I please.” In both cases, life did not approve; both these persons were in trouble with themselves and others. Liberty comes through obedience to law. A man who had lived a defeated life told how he became victorious, “It is silly for a poor mortal to buck the stream of life. I have always sought out its currents and have sought to flow with it.”
Love can spring, be spontaneous and free, only if it comes “from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith.” In other words, from a disciplined life. Any supposed freedom that leaves you with an impure heart, a bad conscience, and an insincere faith ends, not in springing and singing, but in sighing and dying.
Another passage puts discipline as the result (the first passage puts it as “the aim”), “God has not given us a timid spirit but a spirit of power and love and discipline” (2 Tim. 1:7 Moffatt). The aim of discipline is to produce discipline. The first result of that discipline is courage, “not a timid spirit.” Disciplined persons have a sense of courage, and are afraid of nothing for they know that the sum total of reality is behind them. Disciplined persons have a sense of power, for they know they are working with God, and God is working with them; they have a “love” that springs and sings.
O singing Christ, teach me your way, the way of discipline. For I too would sing. I too would be free. For your will is freedom; my will is bondage. When I take my way, I end in a mess. When I take your way, I end in courage, power, and love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “My son, spurn not the Eternal’s schooling” (Prov. 3:11 Moffatt).
Week 32 Wednesday
Discipline Produces Liberty
Romans 8:1-2, 5-6
Discipline is not something that is imposed on us. It is discovering the laws of our being and finding that they are the laws of God. “Happy are they who follow his injunctions, giving him undivided hearts” (Ps. 119:2 Moffatt). The opposite could be this, “Unhappy are they who follow their own inclinations, giving themselves a divided, conflicted self.”
Again, the psalmist puts it thus, “Your statutes are my songs, as I wander through the world” (Ps. 119:54 Moffatt). Statutes become songs! Laws become a liberty—to sing! The idea of the disciplined person as a disagreeable person is false. Disciplined persons are full of rhythm and song, for they are attuned to Life. It is true that Jesus said, “Everyone has to be consecrated by the fire of the discipline” (Mark 9:49 Moffatt), but this “fire of the discipline” burns away only the fetters. When the three Hebrew children fell bound into the fiery furnace, the fire did nothing to them except to burn their bonds. They walked around free in the fire. And the form of the Fourth was with them. The fire of discipline does nothing to you except to burn every clinging fetter and make you walk free with the Fourth. You are “consecrated by the fire of the discipline.” The fire frees you to be dedicated to the worthwhile.
Someone has said, “Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.” Discipline takes away superfluities, confines us to the essentials, and makes life beautiful, for nothing clutters up the picture. We must so discipline our lives that nothing remains except that which counts and contributes.
Miss America of 1945—Bess Myerson, the first Jewish American to be crowned Miss America—left her pageant duties to address high-school students with a speech called “You Can’t Hate and Be Beautiful.” They don’t jibe. For hate is undisciplined love. Lust is undisciplined sex. Worry is undisciplined foresight. You cannot have an undisciplined life and be beautiful. For beauty is the harmony of lines. Discipline brings life into central harmony by directing it toward great ends. Discipline is development, development in harmony.
O Christ, I know I shall surrender myself to the discipline of something, to the discipline of the pressures around me or to the discipline of your will and purposes. If I do the first I shall pass away. If I do the second I shall remain forever. Help me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Happy is he who has thy discipline and thine instruction, training him calmly to wait on, in adversity” (Ps. 94:12-13 Moffatt).
Week 32 Thursday
Steps toward a Disciplined Life
2 Timothy 1:6-7; 2:1-4
Many people accept grace and rise to a new life and then it leaks out because of a lack of discipline. A brother prayed very often, “Fill me, Lord.” A man nearby was overheard to say, “You can’t, Lord. He leaks.” Many of us are not “filled,” because if we were we would leak out. God isn’t going to pour the water of grace down the rat holes of undisciplined living.
We must now take these steps in becoming a disciplined person:
(1) Let discipline begin at the center, not at the margin. The center is you. You must be undivided in affection. It was said, “Asa’s mind was undivided all his life” (2 Chron. 15:17 Moffatt). That is at the basis of all successful effective character. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (Jas. 1:8 KJV). “Purify your hearts, you double-minded” (Jas. 4:8 Moffatt). “Keep, then, an undivided mind for the Eternal our God, to live by his rules and to obey his orders” (1 Kings 8:61 Moffatt). One of the greatest tragedies of history is this, “When he grew old, he had no undivided mind for the Eternal his God. . . . His wives seduced him to follow foreign gods” (1 Kings 11:4 Moffatt). Solomon was a wise man turned foolish because of a lack of inner discipline—discipline at the place of his affections. He wanted mutually incompatible things and fell between stools. Listen to this sound advice, “To those who find them, they are life, and health to all their being. Guard above all things, guard your inner self” (Prov. 4:22-23 Moffatt). Solomon must have said that with a wistful sigh, for it was the very thing he did not do. He did not guard his inner self, so his outer life came down in ruin around him.
Discipline the inner self by a complete self-surrender to God. Don’t give up this thing, that thing. Give up the self and that carries everything else with it. God has you, and that means all you’ve got. I know of a man who is a marginally surrendered person. He is centrally unsurrendered; the self sticks out through all he does for God. A very discerning friend commented, “He came near being a great man.” He surrendered the marginal, kept back the central.
O Christ, I know you are relentless, for you are love. You cannot be satisfied with my marginal allegiances. You are asking for me. And I give you that—now and forever. I am disciplined through self-surrender. The inner tension is gone. You have me. I’m glad. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “The Eternal’s law is in his heart, his footsteps never falter” (Ps. 37:31 Moffatt).
Week 32 Friday
Discipline Your Habits
2 Timothy 2:22-26
We are now on the discipline of the center. Of one man someone said, “He cared little for his character and everything for his reputation.” He tried to discipline a reputation, leaving an undisciplined character untouched.
Someone has said that “there are Seven Deadly Sins: The first is dishonesty, the other six are selfishness.” But dishonesty too is a species of selfishness, so the seven are one—self-centeredness. The first discipline, then, must strike at the first sin: egocentricity.
(2) Discipline your habits. Having surrendered the center, you may now deal with the margins. Go over your life and see if there is anything incompatible with that fundamental surrender of the self. Someone has defined a preacher as “one who preaches a whole gospel and wholly lives it.” Evelyn Underhill speaks of “a willed correspondence of the little human spirit with the Infinite Spirit.”* Would it not be more Christian to speak of a willed correspondence to the will of God—in everything? A very intelligent woman who had gone through many cults in her quest writes, “After reading your chapter on discipline in Abundant Living, I finally stopped smoking after twenty years of consuming twenty cigarettes a day. I prayed God to replace my will with his will, as you teach, and really, it was not difficult. “Perhaps your experience will be like this pastor’s; he battled with cigarette smoking, gave it up several times, and always went back to it. One day he really prayed, and these words came, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” The desire left.
Perhaps the habit may be of another type: a sex habit that saps the lifeblood from the central purposes of life; or a habit of taking the line of least resistance instead of standing up for your principles; or a habit of evading responsibility, excusing yourself when opportunities are presented; or a habit of negativism, of always raising objections to positive plans; or a habit of criticism and faultfinding, of picking flaws in others; or a habit of living in a state of self-reference—“How would that affect me?” or a habit of comparing yourself with others instead of with the will of God. Discipline all these.
O Christ, you are making me a disciplined person and I am glad. I feel that these barnacles that have accumulated through the years and have slowed down the progress of my ship are being sloughed off. I’m getting ready for action. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Happy are they who hold to what is right, who do their duty at all times” (Ps. 106:3 Moffatt).
*Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1937), 22.
Week 32 Saturday
Out of Good and Evil Stores
2 Timothy 2:15, 21; 4:5
Before we leave the disciplining of our habits we must turn to the positive side—replacement of the old by the new. Habit can work with you as well as against you.
Someone said to the exuberant Billy Bray, who was always praising the Lord, “Isn’t it possible to get into the habit of praising the Lord?” “Yes,” replied Billy, “and it’s a very good habit, and so few have it.”* You can build up a set of good habits so that you habitually take the Christian way without thought. Every act repeated drops into the subconscious mind and becomes an attitude that easily repeats itself. Jesus says, “The good man brings good out of his good store” (Matt. 12:35 Moffatt). The good he brings forth is out of his good store, the sum total of accumulated good habits that have passed into attitude and character. No good action, therefore, is lost. Even though it seems to have no effect on the other person, it does something to you, becomes a part of your good store. This becomes a part of inevitable goodness. You are fated in the direction of good.
Jesus also says, however, “The evil man brings evil out of his store of evil” (Matt. 12:35 Moffatt). Every evil thought, every evil act or attitude becomes a part of the “store of evil.” The “store of evil” becomes fate, destiny. Every temptation yielded to makes inevitably easier the yielding to the next temptation, until the character is fixed—in evil. Only the power of God can break it.
But to return to the “good store.” You can add to the good store of your children by your example and your teaching. A magazine editor told of his boyhood days, when his Irish father would say to him as he came back from work, “Have you told the truth? Have you fought square? If so, then begorra, you’re all right. But if you haven’t, I’ll break every bone in your body.” Rough teaching, but years later, when the editor was offered a half-million-dollar bribe to print certain things, he wouldn’t accept it. There was his father’s teaching; the “good store” held him in the crisis.
We speak of a person “making a pile.” The “good store” is the pile that counts when you most need it.
O Christ, the simple thought, the simple act, the simple habit becomes part of my store, a part of me. Teach me to watch day by day the little things that make me inevitably. I want to be a truly disciplined person, to be good inevitably. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “I know that his orders mean eternal life” (John 12:50 Moffatt).
*Billy Bray (1794–1868) was an evangelical preacher in Cornwall. No published source found for the quotation.