Discipline

-There is no better fitting characteristic of a disciple than discipline. Discipline says, “I will do what I must without wavering. Regardless of convenience, regardless of how I feel in the present moment”.

-For some reason Christians have it in their head that they have to ‘feel’ a certain way in order to do something. They think they have to feel a certain way in order for their worship to be good or acceptable.

Last time I checked, the quality of our worship is not based on how we feel emotionally in the present moment.

Jesus said that those who would worship Him would do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Not spirit and emotion. Not emotion and truth. Spirit and Truth.

Spirit. Truth. These are the disciplines that comprise meaningful worship. Emotion may sometimes be useful, but it is not required. Emotion would be an extremely insecure and unstable foundation on which to base anything, yet for some reason we try to base our worship on these emotions. Jesus said that people would honor Him with their lips but have their hearts far from Him (Matt 15:8). When we focus on our own emotions in worship, we aren’t focusing on God, we are honoring Him with lips while our heart is focused on ourselves. That is undisciplined worship.

The quality of discipline is the ability to force yourself to do something good even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.

There is no ‘when I feel like it’, there is only discipline. No ‘feeling’ like showing up to community outreach day is required, there is only showing up. There is no ‘feeling’ like singing “I’ll fly away” for the eight hundredth time, there is only singing it. You don’t have to be emotional to have a good attitude and to have discipline.

It is for this reason that when God commands us to do things, he doesn’t add caveats that require us to feel a certain way when doing them.

It would be a living nightmare if every time we had to do something we were required to feel emotion. Emotions are just chemical reaction in the brain anyways.

God made us, and He knew we wouldn’t get a dopamine rush every time we do what is right. He knew we wouldn’t be happy every time we sing “In Christ Alone”.

Because that’s what emotion is, a biochemical cocktail in the brain, and it’s not consistent.

We cannot guarantee that chemical mixture every single time we do something, that doesn’t work biochemically.

Sure, there are times when we do what is right and everything lines up perfectly. We feel like doing something, we want to do it and it goes well. Then we feel good afterwards and feel satisfied with what we did. But that doesn’t happen every single time. Sometimes we have to do what’s right simply because it’s what God said. And we must force ourselves to do it with discipline.

We aren’t going to feel like keeping a lot of the commands, and that is why they are commands.

They go against what our flesh wants, they go against what we desire emotionally. This is why we have to deny ourselves. We have to avoid things that are otherwise desirable to our primal instincts.

We are commanded to avoid sexual immorality even though we really want sex with multiple partners. We are commanded to love our enemy, even though we feel like destroying him. We are commanded love our neighbor when we really would rather just ignore him. We are commanded to keep pure speech even though we would rather say every single thing we think.

Think about this: God gives a command that you don’t feel like keeping, but you keep it anyways through discipline.

That is the ideal. This is virtue: To know what’s right and do it even though you don’t want to and even in the face of massive temptation. This is also discipline.

If I feel like keeping the command, then so what if I keep it? I didn’t have to resist or force huge effort into being righteous, therefore I didn’t grow. There is no growth possible in anything without some form of discomfort. There is no discipline in doing what’s right merely when we feel like it. It’s what we do when we don’t feel like it that defines us.

Discipline keeps us faithful even when rationality runs dry.

Discipline keeps us on the straight and narrow. Discipline will outlast logic and reasoning and emotion.

-You aren’t always going to feel like reading your Bible. You won’t feel like singing, praying or being grateful. You won’t feel joyous, calm or enjoy listening to the sermon. Sometimes the only thing you have is discipline.

Discipline yourself to find meaning in the lyrics of the hymn you have sung thousands of times.

The Discipline to focus on the prayer when God “feels” absent from your life.

Discipline to read the Bible every single day without fail, without excuse.

The Discipline to hide the Word of God in our hearts every single day.

Discipline to be grateful even in times of lack.

The Discipline to be joyous in times of suffering.

These aren’t feel good statements, they are what we must do consistently. Every day even when and especially when we do not feel like it. This is discipline.