Disciplining the Disciple

 I was reading my devotion one morning and it was talking about how we needed to ask God to reveal sin in our lives that we are not aware of. Well I did it, and God began to reveal to me that I lacked discipline. I couldn’t understand why out of all the flaws I had that he would pick that one. It was later that I realized being disciplined was the only way to become a disciple. 

The root word of disciple is Discipline. A disciple is a follower or believer of a teacher. The bible gives us the instructions for the path to a more disciplined life in Luke 9:23, “then he said to them all: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me.  This can be broken down into 3 simple concepts:

1. Deny ourselves- this confirms that in order to follow God and be in true relationship with him we must be committed to denying ourselves. We cannot love God andthe world. We can’t love fattening foods more than we love being fit. We can’t love spending money and having it too. What you feed grows and what you starve dies. When you deny yourself you begin the process of dying to your flesh so that your spirit can flourish. 

2.Take up our cross daily- Every day we must deny ourselves. I read a quote that says your life will be a series of choices that you make over the years. It’s not one choice that shapes your life, Its many. It is doing the same thing over and over again- being consistent, and doing what is right all the time that makes the difference. 

3. Follow Christ- You have chosen to deny yourself the things, people, and overall desires that don’t look like Jesus and you are making the daily choices that please him. You choose to chase after him and not the things of this world. The third part of this scripture is the summation of number one and number two. If we deny ourselves the things that don’t look like God and take up our cross daily- we willbecome disciplined followers of Christ, and in turn, disciples. 

Being disciplined is the ultimate challenge because God didn’t just send Jesus so that we could be saved, he sent him to teach us to be disciples and to give us a real life example of what it looks like to follow God. Allow him (God) to reveal to you areas where you struggle with being disciplined and wholeheartedly commit to changing that because in doing so you will inevitably become more like Christ.