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Created, Cared for, & Called
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are worth more than the birds!
We say “free as a bird,” but the truth is God meant us to be freer than birds. He made us in His image, which means He gave us things He did not give them: reason and will and the power to choose.
God created me with the power to disobey, for the freedom to obey would be nothing at all without the corresponding freedom to disobey. My fulfillment as a human being depends on my answer, for it is a loving Lord who calls me through the world’s fog to His island of peace. If I trust Him, I will obey Him gladly.
Discipline: The Answer to God’s Call
God confided in Noah His plan to destroy the earth. He told Noah how he and his family could escape the judgment—if they would obey. “But with you I will make a covenant… Exactly as God had commanded him, so Noah did.”
Abraham was chosen to be the “father of many nations.” Strict obedience was asked of him, obedience that would entail sacrifice from a seventy-five-year-old man: separation from everything that had been familiar to him, uprooting from comfortable surroundings, relinquishing of possessions and material security. But he “set out as the Lord had bidden him.”
Moses was another one. There could be no doubt in his mind that he was being divinely summoned when a voice (perhaps the first voice he had heard for a long time—he was far off in the wilderness, minding sheep) spoke his name out of a bush that was on fire. Moses responded, “Yes, here I am.”
Discipline is the wholehearted yes to the call of God. When I know myself called, summoned, addressed, taken possession of, known, acted upon, I have heard the Master. I put myself gladly, fully, and forever at His disposal, and to whatever He says my answer is yes.
How Do We Know We Are Called?
In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. The effort of performing ordinary activities without the help of that pull is often vastly greater than it would be under normal conditions (try pouring a glass of water, eating a sunny-side up egg, or turning a screwdriver—water will not fall, the egg will not stay on your fork, the screwdriver will not revolve: you will). Where there is no “moral gravity”—that is, no force that draws us to the center—there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock, for our reference point, until we answer God’s call, is merely ourselves.
The first baby step of faith is followed by a daily walk of obedience, and it is as we continue with Him in His Word that we are assured that we were, in fact, called and have nothing to fear.
Under Orders
The disciple is one who has made a very simple decision. He must leave self behind He must take up his cross And come with me The result of the decision is guaranteed, “Whoever cares for his own safety is lost, but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self. The disciple is not on his own, left to seek self-actualization, which is a new word for old-fashioned selfishness.”
Jim Elliot signed his name in Elisabeth’s Wheaton Tower and added 2 Timothy 2:4, “A soldier on active service will not let himself be involved in civilian affairs; he must be wholly at his commanding officer’s disposal.” The message was loud and clear. Any hopes she might have entertained, any feelings Jim himself might have had for her that he had not at that time expressed, must give way before the guiding principle of his life. He was not at liberty to plan the future, being at the disposal of someone else.
I cannot be saved from my sins unless I am also saved from myself, so Christ must be “commanding officer” in my life.
Grace, Book, Spirit—And One Thing More
Discipline is not my claim on Christ, but the evidence of His claim on me. I do not “make” Him Lord, I acknowledge Him Lord.
If we are Christians, we have the Spirit of God. We are disciplined by that Spirit. “The spirit that God gave us is no craven spirit, but one to inspire…self-discipline.” There it is. The grace makes it possible; the Scripture points the way; the Spirit inspires—but there is one thing more. Yet still there is something for man to do, and it is the greatest thing any man can ever do. It is to put his full trust in the living God. Faith is the only thing required.
It would be wise for every Christian to post as his motto the lesson Jesus taught: “We are servants and deserve no credit; we have only done our duty.” We have been given a task. Faith is that task. Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking we are making any contribution to our eternal salvation, are doing God a favor, or that He owes us anything for work done.
A Sovereign God and a Man’s Choice
When the will of man acts in accord with the will of God, that is faith. When the will of man acts in opposition to the will of God, that is unbelief.
God will never disappoint us. He loves us and has only one purpose for us: holiness, which in His kingdom equals joy.
Discipline #1: The Body
The lust for money and power moves men when a bulldozer wouldn’t move them otherwise. They will punish their bodies, spending most of their waking hours sitting in an office chair, then working out furiously in a gym or on a jogging track, eating tiny breakfasts, tremendous “business” lunches, and high-calorie dinners, all in order to get ahead in the world and enjoy some of its pleasures for a season.
“Aim at…a holy life, for without that no one will see the Lord.”
More spiritual failure is due to this cause than to any other: the failure to recognize this living body as having anything to do with worship or holy sacrifice. This body is, quite simply, the starting place. Failure here is failure everywhere else.
The Christian’s body houses not only the Holy Spirit Himself, but the Christian’s heart, will, mind, and emotions—all that plays a part in our knowing God and living for Him.
What is meant by disciplining the body? A body needs food. Food is a question of discipline for us who live in very rich, very civilized, very self-indulgent countries.
In Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, Paul appointed elders and then “with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord in whom they had put their faith.” Bishop John Allen has given five good reasons to fast:
- Fasting helps us to identify with the hungry, whom we are commanded to serve.
- Fasting reminds us to pray.
- Fasting makes us open to God’s call.
- Fasting prompts us to reflect on the outworking of His call.
- Fasting is a mysterious instrument of the Holy Spirit’s work.
The social aspect of fasting is perhaps the most awkward thing about it. Jesus told us not to let people know we are fasting, but to groom ourselves as usual so that only our Father, “who is in the secret place” will see. Sometimes it is quite impossible to keep one’s fast a secret.
Sleep is another necessity. It takes discipline to go to bed when you ought to, and it takes discipline to get up.
Elliot’s father had a ready answer for those who expressed incredulity at his “ability” to get up so early in the morning: “You have to start the night before.”
An eighteenth-century hymn by Thomas Ken would seem quaint nowadays:
Awake my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run:
Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.
The body needs exercise. “The training of the body does bring limited benefits.”
The important thing is to move around somehow. Don’t ride when you can walk, and walk briskly. When you can climb stairs instead of taking an elevator, climb them. When you do housework, move quickly. If your life’s work requires sitting at a desk most of the day, you will have to arrange to get your body into motion.
Discipline #2: The Mind
In her biography of the seventeenth-century French archbishop François de Fénelon, Katharine Day Little writes, “Simple and orderly living was the secret of his power and efficiency, for his austerity was in reality a purposeful and rational expenditure rather than a self-conscious mortification. It represented the beauty of an orderly and clean mind that naturally turned away from gaudy gewgaws and the disorder of the unnecessary.” A simple and orderly life represents a clean and orderly mind.
“Be mentally stripped for action, perfectly self-controlled,” is what Peter says we must do.
The Eastern art of meditation is not similar to Christian meditation, but perhaps one lesson at least could be learned from it: that of assuming a special posture.
Do not try to “think about nothing.” “Set your mind,” Paul says, not, “Empty your mind.” Set it on Christ, not on earthly things.
Deliberately refuse thoughts of what someone has done to you and to ask for help to dwell on what Christ has done for that person and wants to do for him and for you, for our treatment of people depends on how we think about them. This hymn is often a helpful prayer to pray, “May the mind of Christ my Savior Live in me from day to day, By His Love and pow’r controlling All I do and say.”
Dr. Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Atlanta, shows how strongholds develop. They begin with a thought. One thought becomes a consideration. A consideration develops into an attitude, which leads them to action. Action repeated becomes a habit, and a habit establishes a “power base for the enemy,” that is, a stronghold.
The disciple who means to compel every one of his thoughts to surrender in obedience to Christ would do well to test himself by asking the following questions:
- Whose glory do I seek?
- Is this for or against the knowledge of God?
- Am I giving my mind to wholesome precepts?
- Am I morbidly keen on mere verbal questions and quibbles?
- Is it more important to me to understand than to obey?
- Is it more important to me to know than to believe?
- Will one side of the question inconvenience me?
- Do I reject a particular truth because it will inconvenience me?
Discipline #3: Place
The Bible tells us to give “due honor” to everyone. Due means “owed, payable”; that is, it is not something above and beyond the call of duty, but something obligatory, just like bills, tolls, or taxes. It means also as much as is required, as “due care,” or “in due time.” It has nothing to do with our feelings about ourselves or others.
“Discharge your obligations to all men; pay tax and toll, reverence and respect, to those to whom they are due. Leave no claim outstanding against you, except that of mutual love.”
One source of confusion is the definition of respect. Respect means “reverence under God,” that is, a proper appreciation for the person God has made for the very reason that God made him. But the Bible says that God is “no respecter of persons,” which means that He has no favorites.
When Peter tells us to give due honor to everyone, he then goes on to specify three different ways of obeying that command: “love to the brotherhood, reverence to God, honour to the sovereign.”
Christianity teaches righteousness, not rights. It emphasizes honor, not equality. A Christian’s concern is what is owed to the other, not what is owed to himself. “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully… Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back.” It is a long way from the old equal-rights law of an eye for an eye.
Our great model in this, as in all other aspects of the disciplined life, is Jesus. Honor was His very mode of existence. Just before He was crucified He prayed to His Father, referring to the completion of everything the Father had given Him to do as being the way in which He, Christ, had honored Him.
While Jesus actually used the word honor in referring to the three ways in which it worked—His honoring the Father, the Father’s honoring Him, and the believers’ honoring Him—there is a fourth way: His honoring believers.
It is implied throughout the prayer, in phrases such as:
- I have shown yourself to the men whom you gave me from the world.
- Every message which you gave me I have given them.
- I am praying for . . . the men whom you gave me.
- I have sent them to the world just as you sent me.
Discipline #4: Time
Consider the two ancient concepts of time. One, expressed by the Greek word chronos, refers to “the minutes of our hours,” or the notion of duration and succession. The other, kairos, is what Dr. James Houston calls “time evaluated,” signifying instrumentation and purpose. “Man needs to see himself significant, in the light of events, of kairos, seeing himself hopefully in the context of a greater reality than his own temporality, of chronos.”
“I don’t have time” is probably a lie more often than not, covering “I don’t want to.” We have time—twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week. All of us have the same portion.
When we are in the midst of great busyness, we hardly think of kairos and see chronos only as hours that are flying by faster than we can count. It is when things are quiet that we become aware of minutes that tick slowly by. Then we have opportunity, perhaps, to think of their deeper significance in the light of eternity.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, take courage, and wait for the Lord” is an important word needed many times.
When we wish for solitude and no interruption, the phone rings, people come, mail arrives that demands immediate action.
The sum of our job here on earth is to glorify God. This was the sum of Jesus’s task as well. How did He do it? Shortly before He was crucified He said to His Father, “I have glorified thee on earth by completing the work which thou gavest me to do.”
There is always enough time to do the will of God. For that we can never say, “I don’t have time.” When we find ourselves frantic and frustrated, harried and harassed and “hassled,” it is a sign that we are running on our own schedule, not on God’s.
Elliot recalled, “I wrote to a friend telling her the things on my roster for which I needed her prayers. It was a long list, more than I felt I could possibly accomplish. ‘Thy list be done’ is what I’m praying for you these days,” she wrote back.” It is a good prayer for a disciple to pray.
Elliot is all for making lists of what needs to be done (and she is personally exhilarated by checking them off when finished!). But the lists must be reviewed daily with the Lord, asking Him to delete whatever is not on His list for us, so that before we go to bed it will be possible to say, “I have finished the work You gave me to do.”
Direct your time and energy into worry, and you will be deficient in things like singing with grace in your heart, praying with thanksgiving, listening to a child’s account of his school day, inviting a lonely person to supper, sitting down to talk unhurriedly with wife or husband, writing a note to someone who needs it.
Just a few words about the most important time of the day: that spent alone with the Lord. Let it be a regular time. Have a special place.
Let your prayer include worship, thanksgiving, confession of sin, petition (including one asking God to speak to you during your quiet time), and intercession (prayers for others).
Keep a spiritual journal, noting lessons learned, Scriptures applied to a particular need, prayers answered. Read a portion of the Bible in some ordered sequence.
During his lifetime, Billy Graham read from both Psalms and Proverbs daily, along with whatever other portion of the Bible he was in.
Offering to God the first hour of the day is a token of consecration of all of our time.
Discipline #5: Possessions
“So also none of you can be a disciple of mine without parting with all his possessions,” was what Jesus said about things. It is a stern condition. Few of us fulfill it literally.
It usually takes loss or deprivation in some measure for most of us to count the blessings we so readily take for granted. The loss of material things is not to be compared with the loss of people we love, but most of us have experienced both, and it is things we are considering now.
Few of us are as well acquainted with the extremes that the apostle Paul knew: “I know what it is to be brought low, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have been very thoroughly initiated into the human lot with all its ups and downs—fullness and hunger, plenty and want.” In whatever measure we have experienced these, the Lord has given us opportunity to learn the vital disciplines of possession.
The first lesson is that things are given by God. “Make no mistake, my friends. All good giving, every perfect gift, comes from above, from the Father of the lights of heaven.”
The second lesson is that things are given us to be received with thanksgiving. God gives. We receive.
The third lesson is that things can be material for sacrifice. This is what is called the eucharistic life. The Father pours out His blessings on us; we, His creatures, receive them with open hands, give thanks, and lift them up as an offering back to Him, thus completing the circle.
The fourth is that things are given to us to enjoy for a while. The Bible says, “God…endows us richly with all things to enjoy.” It also says, “Do not set your hearts on the godless world or anything in it.” It is altogether fitting and proper that we should enjoy things made for us to enjoy.
Jesus said, “Beware! Be on your guard against greed of every kind, for even when a man has more than enough, his wealth does not give him life.”
“Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where it grows rusty and moth-eaten, and thieves break in to steal it. Store up treasure in heaven, where there is no moth and no rust to spoil it, no thieves to break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
A man who had great possessions came asking Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life. Jesus said he must keep the commandments. He had done so, the man said. What else was necessary? “If you wish to go the whole way, sell your possessions…and come, follow me.” The man’s attitude toward his possessions is revealed in his going away with a heavy heart.
Clothes, food, money: “All these are things for the heathen to run after, not for you, because your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Set your mind on God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well. So do not be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself.”
Four lessons, then:
- Things are given by God.
- Things are to be received with thanksgiving.
- Things are material for sacrifice.
- Things are given us to enjoy for a while.
And there is a fifth: All that belongs to Christ is ours. Therefore, as Amy Carmichael wrote, “All that was ever ours is ours forever.”
Discipline #6: Work
There is no such thing as Christian work. That is, there is no work in the world which is, in and of itself, Christian. Christian work is any kind of work, from cleaning a sewer to preaching a sermon, that is done by a Christian and offered to God.
A Christian finds fulfillment not in the particular kind of work he does, but in the way in which he does it. Work done for Christ all the time must be “full-time Christian work.”
Here’s the essential lesson: interest and challenge can always be found in any task done for God. If our work seems to be beneath us, if it becomes boring and meaningless, mere drudgery, it may be a living, but it is not living. It is not the life of freedom and fullness a disciple’s life is designed to be. Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet.
A formula guaranteed to prevent boredom is to have: Something to do; Someone to love; and Something to look forward to. The Christian has all these in Christ: work, a Master, a hope. Yet how easily we forget this.
This is the very point we need to get hold of—the enemy has plenty of means of dulling the shine, distracting us, making us bored with whatever is given us to do. Making it appear worthless. It is difficult to keep in mind the spiritual character of our work (for there is spiritual character to all work that God gives us).
A Christian is characterized by a willingness to work. Laziness was so serious an offense that Paul told the Thessalonians to hold aloof from anyone who fell into idle habits. He himself had never accepted board or lodging from anyone without paying for it.
Elliot recalls that when she was in the sixth grade, one of her penmanship exercises was this verse, which has rung in her mind ever since, “If a task is once begun Never leave it till it’s done. Be the labor great or small, Do it well or not at all.”
Discipline #7: Feelings
Feelings, like thoughts, must be brought into captivity.
Years ago, Seven Oxford Men wrote a book called Foundations, which was an attempt to allow all Christians to believe what they liked. Ronald Knox said, “They corrected ‘I believe’ to ‘one does feel.’”
The people who do real work for God are people with real feelings.
There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that truly holy people are those without feelings. The very opposite is true. Jesus was fully man and fully subject to the temptations of men. He showed deep and tender feelings (taking babies into his arms, weeping for Jerusalem and for His friend Lazarus), powerful anger (when He turned the money changers’ tables upside down and drove them out of the temple with a whip), and before His actual physical suffering at the time of the crucifixion, He was in anguish of soul both at the supper table and later in Gethsemane. Yet He pursued His course.
Thomas Merton wrote that in Jesus we see “a supreme harmony between well-ordered human feelings and the demands of a divine nature and personality.”
The world says, “Go with your feelings and be honest.” The Bible says, “Go with your feelings and die.” The world says, “Deny your feelings and you’re dead.” The Bible says, “But if on the other hand you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, you are on the way to real living.”
A few final words of caution: Do not debunk feelings as such. Remember they are given to us as part of our humanity. Do not try to fortify yourself against emotions. Recognize them; name them, if that helps; and then lay them open before the Lord for His training of your responses. The discipline of emotions is the training of responses.
Saint Francis de Sales put it this way: “We are not masters of our own feeling but we are by God’s grace masters of our consent.”
Exchange: My Life for His
The goal of every true disciple is to please his God. The Bible is our guidebook, showing us how to do that. He offers an exchange: His life for ours. He showed us what He meant by giving Himself.
God offers us love, acceptance, forgiveness, a weight of glory, fullness of joy. Is it so hard to offer back the gifts that came in the first place from the wounded hands—body, mind, place, time, possessions, work, feelings?
The principle of self-offering that works this way: If we suffer with Christ, we will reign with Him. If a grain of wheat dies, it produces fruit. If we relinquish our mourning, God gives us a garment of praise. If we bring our sins, He replaces them with a robe of righteousness.
Joy comes not in spite of, but because of, sorrow. When discipline becomes a glad surrender, “Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also know the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours.”