Discipline…they say it’s what separates the successful from the unsuccessful because “successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.” I believe as God-centered entrepreneurs, this is bigger than the actions we take that move our business forward. It’s really about our discipline of being in the Word daily, turning to and trusting God to move in ways we simply cannot, and letting Him change us for His best.
Hebrews 12:11 says “Now no discipline seems to be joyful for the present, but painful nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who’ve been trained by it.” In my Life Principles Bible, Dr. Charles Stanley comments, “None of us like to be disciplined, right? It’s never pleasant because it requires a change in our perspective, our goals, our behavior, and our attitude. But through discipline, deeply entrenched sinfulness and destructive habits are rooted out and our earthly sources of security are destroyed.”
I’m going to come back to that in just a second.
“This is all difficult and it can be so painful when God is pruning us, but if we cooperate with Him, if we yield and surrender to Him in this, as he’s redirecting us, as he’s divinely interrupting us to move us in the direction he wants us to be going in- the more we become like him. And great blessing will be the result.”
Now I don’t want you to assume that “great blessing” means prosperity, money, and stuff, and promotion, etc. But “great blessing” is what He defines it to be. Now, this is painful, right? But we all know what comes with discipline. What comes with discipline is tried and true direction and routine, but in all the good ways. Everything takes discipline. If we want to eat cleaner and get healthy, it takes discipline. It takes discipline to make sure we’re eating the right foods, to eliminate the bad foods, it takes discipline to get to the gym. It takes discipline to do a good job, to work with excellence for the Lord. And that’s not easy. But, when we surrender it to Him, it is the beauty of what comes out of it that makes all the difference.
But if skip to verse 28 which says, “Since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” And that’s not fear as we think of fear, but fear like reverence for the Lord. But here’s what it says, “Every earthly security we rely upon can be shaken.” Anything we’re relying upon within the world can be shaken, can be moved, can be taken out of our lives. Absolutely. We’ve all been there…go ahead, raise your hand…I know I’m raising mine. And if you follow me, you know I’ve shared that vulnerably with you.
However, God wants us to stop trusting the transitory and temporary things of the world and wholeheartedly devote ourselves to him. He’s completely unwavering and unmovable and it is only his kingdom that will endure. But here’s what I love, the last sentence of this, “When we build our lives on the foundation of His love, truth, and faithfulness, he will hold us steadfast and every fear will fade.” You guys, those two things together, that sort of bookends of this, the discipline is hard and it’s painful, but there is a blessing when we surrender. And then the other end of it is when we stop depending on the world when we stop looking to the world for our satisfaction and for what defines us, and we truly build our lives on his firm foundation, every fear will fade, He is steadfast, and He will show us His way.
You guys, that is just… that’s it right there. So get into the Word today, make sure you’re spending time in the word, especially if you’re feeling a little bit all over the place. I know I was feeling that recently when I was coming back from vacation, taking my daughter back to Philly, trying to fit in all the things I knew had to be urgent (and weren’t). Being in the Word in the midst of all this immediately cleared my mind, that peace that surpasses understanding flooded over me. This is why it has to be a daily discipline and we have to be consistent in it. That’s the foundation for us as God-centered entrepreneurs.
