DAY 260

BROKEN DOWN WALLS

Proverbs 25 & 26 and 2 Corinthians 9

A man without self-discipline is like a city broken into and left without walls.” 25:28

You probably do not need another blog about money. The New Testament reading for today deals with giving and being cheerful about it, and some folks think the church talks too much about money. Maybe, but if that is the case, so then did Jesus, yet what caught my attention today was the proverb.

Self-discipline: if we do not speak of money we probably talk even less about self-discipline. Today we talk about how we are feeling, how we are being treated, what is fair and what is not, if we are reaching our dreams, etc. Don’t get me wrong a lot of these topics and areas are important in their own right, but so are some of the harder things in life…such as self-discipline.

We need it for all sorts of things, and quite frankly God’s Holy Spirit living inside us is the real hope to have ability to discipline ourselves – for we can do nothing apart from God.

What are the areas you need better self-discipline in? I have them, I know what they are, and yet I need to encourage myself more to work on them. I too often marginally get by, without really mastering them. The Bible today says to not master them is, in the end, to leave ourselves completely defenseless…a city without a wall was an invitation to continuous invasion from all sorts of enemies, and its future was certainly ultimate ruin.

Notice how the proverb says it happens: no self-discipline leads to being broken into to, and that in turn causes the walls to come down. It is as if lacking self-discipline in one area allows an enemy to get into your life, and then this enemy is positioned to destroy everything. What awaits those of us who lack self-discipline…ultimate ruin.

We have examples where one area destroys an entire life. Consider people who have no self-discipline with money and become so over extended they lose their homes, and more. We know of people who get caught in the cycle of alcoholic and drug addiction…it started with a lack of self-discipline. We are seeing it more and more with men and internet pornography…it is rampant and it is destroying families. No doubt you could add to this list.

That proverb today provides a very strong admonition. May God give us the grace to heed Him.