When You Fail In Your Discipline

At the beginning of a new year, when resolutions are fresh, zeal is high and determination is bubbling over, the battle cry for spiritual disciplines harmonizes perfectly with the moment.  There is a reason why people feel the need to let loose a battle cry: they know that it is hard.  We live in an entertainment age with distractions (and snack food) abounding in every nook and cranny of our day.  A battle cry is a good way to start running into battle.

Though thoughts are normally consumed with trying a little harder, making a better plan and investing a little more money, perhaps there is one more feature that should be included in our list of mental preparations.  Along with battle cries and strategies of action, we also need to consider failure.  Failure isn’t just possible, it is inevitable to some degree.  This may not seem like a good way to encourage the first steps of discipline, but one plan that we need, among our bible reading plans and exercise plans, is our plan to handle failure and setback.  How will you respond when you keep sleeping past your alarm instead of reading, playing instead of praying, eating instead of abstaining, spending instead of savingand giving? If your plan is to just give yourself a good rebuke and to get back at it, then you are probably as well set up for growing in pride as anything else.  

There must be a rock beneath our feet as we prepare to take disciplined action.  Feet that are on the starting blocks of self-discipline especially need to be firmly planted on a rock, and that rock must be the gospel.  And guess what the gospel says to discipline?  The gospel says, “it is finished.”  Our discipline is not needed to stay right with God!  Our discipline is not needed to be loved by God!  Our discipline is not needed to be accepted or kept by God!  We are in Christ forever, securely held by omnipotent grace, and protected by an unbreakable oath that he swore upon himself,purchased with blood.  This means we are to live, first and foremost, in rest and peace and security.  Whether we fail or succeed, we can rest.  Whether we grow or sin, we can rest.  

This is where we need to get firmly planted as we take up the task and goals of discipline, and this will save us from the lows of despair and hopelessness when our growth seems nonexistent and old sins we thought were conquered rear their ugly head again.  This will also save us from the self-deluded highs of success and accomplishment.  Whichever way we may be going in any given moment, we can say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  If in failure we can say, “I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1) And if we are making progress and growing we can say “by the Spirit I am putting to death the deeds of the flesh” (Romans 8:13).(period)

So does all of this mean that discipline is not really important?  If we really are secure, then why exert so much effort?  The reason is because the gospel that secures us, and provides all we need, and gives us complete rest, is also the gospel that empowers and transforms. You are not saved or kept by your strivings, but your strivings are an evidence of grace.  True faith will bear good fruits (James 2:14-26), and self-control is one of those fruits that brings forth even more fruits.  God normally does his work through means; his grace is not normally creating growth in us out of thin air.  On the contrary, his grace empowers our strivings and labors (the means).  As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”  God would not be a good God if he did not work in us to create a pursuit of more of Him because he is the greatest treasure, the highest good, and the purest satisfaction that we can have in our lives.  He is graciously working in his children so that they pursue the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ because that is their highest good.

Therefore, get yourself firmly rooted in the gospel and get to work.  You will find that your labors of self-discipline for the purpose of godliness will make advances, and suffer setbacks.  But whichever is happening at the moment, the gospel holds you fast, and will keep you striving for more of him.