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This morning I want to share with you one of the secrets of successful people—secrets to how you can achieve success and live a successful life as a Christian and believer. Every time you ask great men and women with good virtues who are influential about their secrets, I've discovered that nobody wants to share their secrets publicly. But one of their secrets is what I want to share with you this morning: the forces of discipline.
Every successful champion or sports celebrity you can name practices the act of discipline. I was listening to an interview with David Beckham some years ago. They asked him, "You are the best free kick player in the whole world. How did you achieve this?" He told them that after the coach finished with the team's general coaching, he would wait behind for at least five hours practicing free kicks on his own. He kept doing that for years and years, and that is why we have "bend it like Beckham."
Muhammad Ali shared in one of his books: "When others are sleeping, when others are clubbing and enjoying themselves in their social gatherings, I'm all alone by myself studying my opponent. Before I face any opponent, I make sure I study them six months before the fight, watching and looking at their videos, past boxings, past championships—everything. I study it for six months consecutively to understand their weaknesses."
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The difference between successful people and average people is their tenacity not to give up. They are very disciplined—disciplined in their time, disciplined in their appointments, disciplined in their time management and financial management, and disciplined in their relationships as well.
The summary of discipline is about delayed gratification. Anyone who wants to be successful must be ready to wait for the time of success. Many believers pray to God and want their answer now, but there is a time of delayed gratification where God wants you to postpone your success until the appointed time.
Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:25-27: "Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, but I fight not as one who beats the air."
Paul is saying that there is a reason why he's doing what he's doing. If you don't have a purpose and a reason for doing anything, you are wasting your time. Every man who is fighting, playing, or running is running for something. There is a price tag. If you want that prize and you want to win, you must discipline yourself.
The place of discipline is necessary when we involve our lifestyle in practices that foster our spiritual growth and faith in Christ Jesus. That is what spiritual discipline is all about.
Number one: It must be a habit. Spiritual discipline must be something you practice daily. Proverbs 20:13 says, "Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes and you will be satisfied with bread." You must discipline yourself as a Christian in the place of sleeping. Many of us can sleep anywhere, anytime.
Number two: The Holy Spirit must be involved to work it out. Spiritual discipline involves prayer. If you are not disciplined in the place of prayer, you cannot pray. If you are not disciplined in the place of fasting, you cannot fast. Everything in your body will want to kick against this spiritual discipline. The moment you set your watch and decide to fast, that's when McDonald's will be ringing in your head. Why is it that when you are fasting, the picture of McDonald's and KFC will flash in your memory? The body doesn't want it. So you have to discipline it.
Number three: Regular spiritual practices. Studying the scripture regularly must be an act of discipline. A place of worship, regular church attendance, Bible study, prayer meetings—all of these must be acts of discipline.
Number four: Submission to higher authority. Spiritual discipline will require submission of yourself—your body, knowledge, soul, and flesh—to the higher authority.
What is discipline? The practice of training our body to some rules or code of behavior, with punishment or undesired consequences for those failing to comply. Anybody who wants to discipline their body or themselves must put that body under some form of subjection. The body does not want discomfort. Comfort is good, but too much comfort is bad.
Many of the sicknesses and diseases we have today are because of lack of discipline. You eat too much sugar and you have diabetes. But we all want the sugar because it's sweet. It's a lack of discipline. I'm telling you, no matter how rich you are, if you don't discipline yourself, life is what you deserve.
Judges chapter 16 tells the story of Samson. Samson refused to discipline his eyes from lust, and he lost his two eyes to immorality. The Bible says:
"Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah." (Judges 16:4)
The lords of the Philistines came to her and said: "Entice him and find out where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him."
Samson told her his secret—something a wise, successful man would never do—and in verse 21, the result was devastating:
"Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison." (Judges 16:21)
Here was a man of valor, a giant who refused to discipline his eyes. Whatever you refuse to discipline is what the devil will use against you. If you are not disciplined in the place of money, the devil will tempt you with money. If you are not disciplined in the area of adultery, your eyes will see everything wrong. The devil will tempt you. If you are not disciplined in the place of time, you will lose a lot of opportunity. Life is all about discipline.
Job was the opposite of Samson. In Job 31:1, Job said:
"I have made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman?"
One man was not disciplined. The other said, "I have disciplined my eyes. Not only that, I made a covenant with God." Discipline will cost you something.
In 2 Kings 5:20-27, we have the story of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha. Gehazi refused to discipline his appetite for money, and he inherited leprosy.
In contrast, in 2 Kings 2:9, Elisha the servant of Elijah inherited a double portion of his master's anointing. What is the difference? Discipline. Discipline. Discipline.
It will require discipline to have a mutual, personal relationship with God. Many of us love God. We are so passionate and zealous about God, but yet we don't have time. Even when we create time for Him, we start looking at our watch. We are in His presence, yet we are in a hurry. That's lack of discipline.
The Bible says in Psalm 94:12: "Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law."
If you want to be a friend of God, you must deprive yourself of social media. If you want to be a friend of Jesus, you must deprive yourself of television. If you want to be a friend of Jesus, you must deprive yourself of social media. Discipline. Discipline.
I love one of the sisters. She said, "I will lock out Instagram. I will lock out Facebook. Anytime I need them, I log them in. That is discipline." Many of us are not disciplined. You don't even want to check your email, but something will pop in from Facebook and it will divert your attention. The moment your attention is diverted, you can be on that Facebook for 30 minutes, one hour. That's because you are not disciplined.
Even the richest people in the world don't have time for social media. Ask Elon Musk when last he checked Facebook. Ask Bezos when last he checked Instagram. The richest man in Africa, Dangote, was in an interview with his daughter calling, "Dad, papa, papa, papa!" And he said, "Yes, I know you have been calling, but sometimes I don't even have time to check my phone." Yet we, with much less, are on Facebook and Instagram constantly.
The important thing is this: you must be disciplined in the place of social media and entertainment. You don't understand what I'm saying? We have control over these things. We need to choose to deprive ourselves.
Discipline is required to attend regular church fellowship with brethren. Discipline will help you not to look back but to focus on Jesus. Discipline will help you to overcome the temptations of the devil, the flesh, the world, and money.
Hebrews 5:8 says: "Though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered."
If you want to practice the act of discipline, there is a place of suffering. Now, the suffering is not to wound you or oppress you, but to deprive yourself of some benefit or pleasure of life. I love certain foods and certain drinks. But I put myself under subjection at age 39 that I will never take a fizzy drink again. Once I cross 40, that is the end of Coca-Cola and Fanta for myself and my wife.
Someone might say, "Pastor, is this only prayer?" Prayer is good. There's a place to pray. But there's also a place of discipline. You are not disciplined. You eat everything—every junk food, everything they put on your table. That's lack of discipline.
I pray for you today: May you receive grace to discipline your life and yourself in the name of Jesus.
Be broken and regularly examine yourself. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says:
"Examine yourself as to whether you are in faith. Test yourself. Do you not know yourself that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you are disqualified."
You must regularly examine yourself: "Am I doing the right thing?" If you are overweight, nobody needs to tell you—the mirror is there. We only fool ourselves. The mirror tells you the reality. Every time I see my stomach coming up, I go back to my office and look at a picture of a general versier. It's deliberate. So whenever I look at the mirror and see my tummy, I go back to that picture and I said, "This man is 80. Look at his stature, and you are just 60. If you want to grow old like this man, you must remain like this." Every time I look at that picture, I borrow myself some sense and discipline myself.
Be accountable to someone who is a good model after Jesus. 1 Corinthians 10:12 says:
"Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."
When you talk about Joshua, you think of Moses, his mentor. When you talk about Elisha, you think of Elijah. When you speak about Timothy, you talk about Paul. It's not five stones that kill the giant—only one stone. And that one stone might just be immorality, adultery, or fornication. Do you know that the devil can set you up, as holy as you are, if you are not disciplined? The devil will set you up plainly, and you will fall into it and weep. Let him who thinks he stands take heed. Don't boast about yourself; only boast of God. No man has the strength and grace to stand except by the help of the Holy Spirit. Discipline.
Willing to submit and dedicate your entire being—body and mind—to God as a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1-2 says:
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accepted to God, which is your reasonable service."
Your body does not belong to you. Your body belongs to God. That is why God is saying that you must present it to Him as holy. It takes discipline.
2 Timothy 2:21 says:
"Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work."
When last have you declared a fast as an individual? The place of discipline? When last have you declared a personal fast? Do you know that medically, fasting is good? It has been proven that fasting regularly helps you detox yourself. In fact, it has been discovered that people who do fasting regularly are never prone to cancer. The Bible itself is full of these secrets. Yet here we are, believers, eating the best food, the biggest meals. In the morning, we eat eba. In the evening, we eat fufu. For snacks, we eat McDonald's. Then we will not blame the devil. Then we will not blame the devil. We will ask the pastor to pray against sickness and disease, not knowing that we are the cause and the architect of our own problems. Discipline. Discipline.
There are times when I come into this office and want to sit in the chair, and the Holy Spirit will tell me, "What are you sitting there for? Your mates sit on the floor." The Holy Spirit gives you instructions that you don't like, but we overlook them. We struggle and say, "No, this can't be God."
Let me give you another example. Every time we travel on holiday to Europe, we don't park our cars at the airport and call somebody to pick us up. Do you know what we do? We take a bus. I have a car, don't I? My house, I own a car, don't I? That's the place of discipline. We have control over cars. If I choose to have 20 cars, I could say, "Come and pick me," and they would come. But we choose every time we travel from Birmingham to take that bus.
You know, if you don't have feeling for the poor, you can't help the poor. That is one of the problems we have in the body of Christ. Everybody is comfortable. You have no feeling to tread and go to the city center to sit down with the homeless and listen to what they are saying. Then you will understand what life is. That is the place of discipline.
Because we are comfortable, we start our car, we enter, we go to the office, we come back, we park it. We don't care about anybody. The place of discipline: You must be ready to deprive yourself of comfort. You deprive yourself of good things of life, pleasures of life. You deprive yourself of what you can afford and choose not to. That is sacrifice. You deprive yourself of your position sometimes, your title. That is discipline. Someone is about to make you angry, but you just choose within yourself not to say a word. That is a place of discipline—self-deprivation, sacrifice.
Listen to this as I close: David defeated Goliath but lost to Bathsheba. So who is the giant? He had the strength and the anointing to defeat Goliath, but he did not have the wisdom and the self-discipline to defeat Bathsheba. Our real giants are the desires we refuse to kill. I'm telling you from life experience: the real giant you are facing right now is the desire.
Sir, decide right now. Choose to isolate yourself. Go on a solitude, on a retreat. Choose a day of fasting regularly. Choose a day where you will meet God regularly, and come back to me in three or six months and tell me if your life will not change. Within six months, I stand on this altar: if your life will not change. But unfortunately, we are so undisciplined. "My children, my wife, my job, my this"—we are running every day, but yet there is no result. Discipline.
Lift up your two hands. Romans 8:11 says:
"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit."
There is a place of quickening—a place where the devil, demonic forces, disease, and sickness will not be able to stand against you. When the Holy Spirit quickens you, nothing can start. No forces of darkness can stand against you. A place of quickening.
I want you to pray: "Father, wake me up from slumber. Wake me up from my sleep. Wake me up from my spiritual sleep. Wake me up, O God. My Father, my God, wake me up. In the name of Jesus, wake me up."
Holy Spirit, quicken my body, quicken my soul, quicken my spirit in the name of Jesus.
As I close: Proverbs 25:28 says:
"Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls."
The conclusion of the matter: Discipline is all you need. You want to be successful. You want to be prayerful. You want to be a good believer. You want to be steadfast. You want to be committed. You want to make it to heaven. You must be disciplined. There are so many distractions in the world. There are so many things that can distract us. But unless we are disciplined and focused, we cannot make it to heaven.
I pray for you today in the name of Jesus: you will finish well. You will finish strong. You will not fall by the wayside in the name of Jesus. The Holy Spirit will quicken you in the name of Jesus. Every weight that besets you today, the Holy Spirit will remove it. Every burden that is pressing you now, may the Holy Spirit remove that burden in the name of Jesus.
