The Value of Self Discipline

Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. 1 CORINTHIANS 9:26 Today’s culture is obsessed with entertainment, sports, materialism, and emotional gratification. In fact, those excessive preoccupations have become the marks of our shallow, amoral, and often immoral society. A century ago President Theodore Roosevelt essentially predicted those results when he said that prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living, and the get–rich theory of life would eventually destroy America. One sure antidote to such a lifestyle is the self–discipline evidenced in the genuine Christian life. Your spiritual guidance and power come from the Lord, but you need self–discipline if He is to work effectively through you. Paul wrote to Timothy, “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 Tim. 4:8). Ask God to make that true for you.