Thursday, August 16, 2007
ATTAINING GODLINESS THROUGH DISCIPLINE
9 Aug 2007. On the nation's 42nd birthday, everyone gathered for a short time of praise and preaching of the Word. Most turned up decked out in red and white. Even Joseph joined us!
Christianity is about transformation and this transformation means nothing other than becoming more like Christ. That said, transformation takes discipline. 2 Tim 3:16 - 17 says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, ... for 'instruction of righteousness', that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." In my bible, 'instruction of righteousness' refers to training and discipline too. It is agreed in the bible that becoming more like Christ requires discipline! And in 1 Jhn 2:15 - 17 it is written, "... but he who does the Will of God abides forever." Once again, disciplne is necessary to consistently become more like Christ, that is, doing the Will of God.
So much on discipline. How do we go about doing it?
3 aspects to have discipline in:
Affection - allows us to choose who or what we will love. Mat 6:21 tells us our treasure is where our heart is. So we have to learn to love the Word and Will of God and we will place our treasure - our finances, time and thoughts on them. Learn also, to replace bad habits that are getting in our way to have affection for the things we should with good ones, because simply trying to get rid of them is way harder.
Adoption - allows us to choose what we will progress towards in our lives. Having chosen who or what we will love, we have to learn to set goals to deepen the relationship. Be it with people or learning to do something better. For example, understanding the Word of God more. The goals we set create cravings that make us want to keep going back to that person or doing the thing that we love and want to deepen the relationship with. And when we reach our goals, give recognition to ourselves! Reward ourselves with something we like, like going for cheesecake at some cafe or a round of gaming at the LAN shop. Eph 4:22
(Taking) Action. All goals are nothing without action, just like an idea in your mind is nothing without the action of speaking it forth. It might be a Nobel Prize-winning goal or idea but without action it is still nothing. Zero. Zilch. As we act on our goal continuously, it becomes a habit. And when we habitually pursue our goals, it becomes our destiny. Pastor Kong once mentioned that it takes at least 3 weeks of repeatedly doing something for it to become a habit. Maybe some of us haven't been punctual, for school, for service... Or maybe some of us haven't been reaching out to our family, friends and relatives. For all we know, we might be the only Christian they know. Doesn't the thought of them going to hell scare you? Today, decide to take action, to make it a habit and it shall become a destiny.
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
Labels: CG Sermon
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