Self-Controlled and Disciplined
Let's bring to a close Paul's little list of things that he expects from the people of God.
Yesterday we saw in Titus 1:8 we must love what is good. And then Paul says that the people of God should be “self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.” Now, we spoke about upright and holy a bit yesterday, so let's talk about being self-controlled and disciplined today.
The Power of Habits
They say that your success is determined not by your hope but by your habits. In fact, if you want to get some really good content on this type of thinking, have a look at the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. You can find it on YouTube, and I think you'll find that content so helpful.
He talks a lot about this type of thing—how your habits are going to determine your success. It's not what you hope might happen or even what you aim for. Rather, it's the things that you put in place in your life, the systems that you put in place, that will determine your success.
And so when Paul says we need to be self-controlled and disciplined, he's right—because without these qualities in our lives, we get nowhere.
Discipline Brings Results
In fact, the great Bible scholar William Barclay once wrote this about a talented but unproductive man named Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He said, “Coleridge is the supreme tragedy of indiscipline. Never did so great a mind produce so little. It was said of him that he lost himself in visions of work to be done that always remained to be done. He had every poetic gift but one—the gift of sustained and concentrated efforts.”
Then Barclay says that “in his head and in his mind, Coleridge had all kinds of books, but the books were never composed outside of his mind because he would not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out.”
Then he says: “No one ever reached any eminence, and no one having reached it, ever maintained it without discipline.”
Yes the Christian life is a life of discipline and self-control.
Living as Disciples
In fact, think about the word disciple. A disciple was one who would be disciplined in their learning from a specific teacher. As disciples of Christ, we are disciplined learners of His way of life.
I want to encourage you to prayerfully take a few moments and see if there are areas in your life where you need to be more self-controlled, more disciplined.
Maybe you need self-control in your eating, or in your TV watching, or in what you look up online, or in your spending. Maybe you need to be more disciplined in reading your Bible and praying, or in exercising.
Getting self-control and discipline in these areas is not restricting—it’s empowering. When you put these types of things in their place, you start to find success.
And as Christians, we know that the power to do this truly only comes from the Holy Spirit. Receive His infilling. Believe that you are filled and that you are empowered. Get up and walk with God in faith every day, doing these new habits.
I pray, friends, that you as a Christian will be more self-controlled and more disciplined than you've ever been this year.
Put some good habits in place so that you live a life that is self-controlled and disciplined—and ultimately successful for God's glory.
