Discipline Yourself (Replay)

Discipline Yourselves 1 Peter 1:13-16 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.  Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”I really like the first line of the verse.  It says to prepare our minds for action.  This can be hard for some of us.  We can have a lot of ideas, but then we get stuck wanting them to be perfect, and so we spend a lot of time thinking about them and how we should do them, but then we don’t do them because we aren’t quite sure how.  Does this sound familiar?  I know I can’t be the only person who does this.  I can’t be the only one who wants to do things perfectly, and so I get stuck and don’t end up doing as much as I know I could be doing.I want to follow the Lord’s will and I want to follow His commandments, and yet sometimes I don’t do something because I am not sure exactly how He wants me to do it.  The thing is, most of the time, I don’t think He cares how we do it, as long as we are doing it with the right frame of mind and with our heart.  If we let the Holy Spirit guide us, then we can’t go wrong.  Why do we worry so much, then?  I think it is because we love the Lord so much that we want to be perfect for Him.  I think it is because we struggle to believe that He truly loves us just as we are.  We are used to human love, which is fallible and conditional at times.  We feel as though we must earn the Lord’s love, and so we want to do things perfectly for Him.  I don’t think we even realize we are doing this.  I know I wasn’t aware.  I was talking to my spiritual advisor about how I felt like I needed to do all these things, and she pointed out that I was feeling like I needed to earn God’s love. We don’t need to earn God’s love!  He loves us more than anything, and He has loved us long before we were born, and He will love us long after we die.  I know I have probably said this a lot, and I will keep saying it because we struggle to believe it.  We do not have to earn God’s love; He gives it freely and abundantly.The next two words are words that we don’t always like: discipline yourselves.  This is not easy.  This is one thing that we get to work on during Lent.  We get a chance to discipline ourselves by fasting from things that are important to us, or doing things that we don’t normally do.  During Lent, we get to step outside of our comfort zone and stretch ourselves in the area of discipline.  I remember watching a YouTube video of Father Mike talking about why we fast during Lent.  He explained it in a way that made me enjoy fasting a little more.  He discussed how fasting is a way of demonstrating our love for.  Fasting is an act of love.  It’s kind of like that question, what do you get the guy that has everything?  Well, God has everything; He doesn’t need anything.  He loves us completely, and one way to show Him our love is to fast, or give something up, or start doing something we normally don’t do.  The thing is, it isn’t really an act of love if we complain and grumble the whole time.  If we go through the motions and we do it just because we have to, then that is showing obedience, but it is not showing love.  How can you show God your love?  What can you fast from? What can you start doing?    The next line says, “set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” To be honest, I almost skipped over this line.  I was not really sure what it meant or how to explain it.  Then I figured if I didn’t know, maybe you don’t either.  Also, the point of this podcast is for us to grow on the journey and for us to understand scripture a little more and figure out how we can apply it to our lives, so I looked up the meaning of this line to see if anyone else had already explained it.  The consensus seems to be that we are to hope in the grace that Jesus will bring us, instead of hoping in things of this world, like money, material objects, or even people.  I think we have a tendency to hope in the things of this world instead of looking towards Jesus.  I found an article titled, Two Ways to Fix Your Hope on Future Grace by Jen Wilkin. (Click Here for Article)   It is definitely worth reading.  She talks about how we need to place our hope in the day that Christ is coming because the days we are currently in may be filled with trial and sorrow.  The two ways she talks about in the article to fix our hope on future grace are to prepare our minds and be sober-minded.  It is a very good article, and I would do it a disservice to try to summarize it for you in a few short lines.  I recommend you take a look at the article if you wish to get a better understanding of this verse and how you can put it into practice in your own life.The next line says, “Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.”  This is an interesting line.  God is often telling us to be like children, or to have a childlike faith.  It doesn’t just say to not give in to your desires.  It says not to conform to the desires you formerly had in ignorance.  If you are listening to this podcast, then you are trying to grow in your faith.  You are trying to learn more about the Lord and His Word.  As you grow, you will gain a better understanding of what the Lord is calling us to.  What His commandments are and what He expects from us.  As you grow, you may learn that some things you are doing are not in alignment with what God expects from you or how he is calling you to live.  This part of the verse is telling us that it is not ok to continue to do these things because now we know they are wrong.  Once you know, if you continue to do that, then you are choosing that thing over the Lord.  One of the conditions of something being a sin is that you have to know it was wrong.  You have to have freely chosen to do it.  Once you know something is wrong, God is calling us to no longer do it.  Being completely honest with you, I have hesitated on my journey to grow before because of this very reason.  In the past, I have stopped to think, “Maybe I don’t want to learn more, because when we learn more, we are held to a higher standard.”  If I don’t know something is wrong and I am doing it, God is not holding it against me.  However, once I know it is wrong, then He is.  Maybe you have never thought about this, but in case you have, I have two things to share.  First, growing closer to the Lord is worth any hardship you may perceive by learning what He expects from us.  As you grow closer to the Lord, you find you don’t want to do anything that might get in the way of your relationship.  You find yourself wanting to please Him more than you want to do those things you used to do. Second, God is calling us to all grow closer to Him.  The very next line in this verse is “ Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  We have a responsibility to learn about God’s Word and what He is calling us to do.  We are all called to Holiness.  God is not ok with us just living in ignorance of His ways and continuing to do whatever we like.  He is calling us to read His Word, study His Word, and live in a way that is in alignment with this Word.  If we purposely refuse to learn because we don’t want to have to live as He is calling us to live, then that is not ok, and I don’t think we can claim ignorance.  We all have a choice to make.  God is calling us all to holiness.  That may mean something different to each of us.  I think if you want to know what God is calling you to, then all you need to do is ask Him.  He will tell you.  I think the one thing that is the same for all of us is that He is calling us to read and study His Word, and also to love Him and love our neighbors.  Will you accept His call? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today.  Lord, we love you and we want to live in alignment with you.  Help us, show us how.  Lord, help us to set our hopes in Jesus and the graces He will bring when He is revealed.  Lord, I ask that you give us a better understanding of the verse.  Please speak to us this week and help us understand it better.  Help us to set our minds towards action and help us to discipline ourselves.  Lord, we love you so very much.  You are amazing, and we are grateful for all you do for us each and every day.  Help us to show you that gratitude with our actions.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.   www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace