Every Christian should desire to succeed at the ambitions God has placed in their hearts. When we succeed, it brings pleasure to God. This success, however, does not come on a silver plate. The person who will attain success must have the discipline to consistently do the things that bring success. Hence this saying of a certain wise man: “The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.”
Now, in addition to disciplining ourselves in order to succeed at what God has put in our hearts, we must also practice discipline in righteousness in order to inherit eternal life. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). Take the example of Paul the apostle. He understood that if he did not daily discipline himself by consistently subjugating his evil fleshly desires, he would not enter the Kingdom of God however successful a preacher he became. That is why he said in 1 Corinthians 9:27 that, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified (cast away).” By saying this, Paul was manifesting the mind of Christ who had said in Matthew 7:21-23 concerning preachers that: “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Therefore, we should imitate Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:27. While we discipline ourselves to achieve the lesser and temporal successes of this present age, we should more importantly discipline ourselves for the greater and eternal success of inheriting eternal life. Greater focus for discipline must be put towards entering the Kingdom of God, and not on excelling at things which will soon pass away. That is why Jesus said: “Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” (Matthew 6:33). We seek first the Kingdom of God by disciplining ourselves to do righteousness. This we do because we know that those who are disciplined at unrighteousness will not inherit the Kingdom of God. As it is written, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God,” (Galatians 5:19-21).
Paul also said that, “Exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come,” (1 Timothy 4:7-8). Once again this teaches us that greater attention must go towards disciplining ourselves to practicing godliness which is a prerequisite to eternal life, vis-à-vis on temporal accomplishments. Eternal life is indeed eternal, but other things are not. Therefore, more discipline must be directed towards consistently doing godliness or righteousness. Otherwise, a person will succeed at all things but fail at that which matters most – eternal life – and thereby end up in hell!
By the way, disciple is derived from discipline. A true disciple of Jesus Christ is therefore the person who is disciplined to consistently do the righteous commands of Jesus. Let that person be you and I. Then we shall succeed at that which matters more than anything else – inheriting eternal life that is in Jesus our Lord.
Amen.