Discipline is NOT Legalism.

Or "Teams that practice at 6am win games at 7pm."

This is not going to be heavily theological but just simply one of those "I was thinking lately..." entries and try spitting some thoughts out in a concise manner.

I've been amused in the last year to be called the "L" word by some interesting characters.
But talking about what is OK and what is not, is not the intention of this entry. I want to veer off into another thing that it doesn't matter what your personal convictions about prayer, personal holiness, how we spend our time, and personal life disciplines. But, my intended reader of today's entry are those of you who have clearly never noticed Paul said "everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial for me."

For example, there is nothing wrong or sinful with watching TV or movies in and of themselves. You could even be watching clean ones, but if it is at the expense of alone time with God, I'll encourage you to give it up. I don't mind a show or a movie here and there in my own life. But if you're spending more time in personal entertainment than you are in personal commune and intimacy with God, trust me, it's not a spiritually healthy place to be in. Try making the shift and see if I'm being "legalistic".

I was driving to a place in town that was going to replace the van's battery for me. As I was driving on the Parkway to the location, I just barely saw a billboard as I was driving past it enough to see its catchphraze, but had missed what the advertisement on it was for. It read "teams that practice at 6am win games at 7pm." And I thought there's an amazing truth to that.

How about we "Christianize" it and make it say "Christians who pray in the morning are ones that win battles in the evening".

Or "Short public prayers are always preceeded by long private ones." as my teacher Bob Gladstone used to say.

If two hockey teams had it out on a rink, and one team practiced several hours a day together, and their opponents didn't, but played video games and watched TV all day while eating pizza and drinking lots of soda, and didn't even come together until it was time to put their skates on and play that match--which team do you think would win? It would be a total fluke if the couch potatoes won, but otherwise most of us expect it would be the well-disciplined team.

Now, let's spiritualize this and add what I see happen in Christian circles all the time: Imagine the game is over, both teams are exiting the rink and walking to their locker rooms, and fans are lined up outside the entrance of the winning team's change room, and only a few are at the losing team's door. A little boy asks one of the star players of the winning team how he prepares for these games. The player starts listing off his morning routine, including practicing with the team several hours, and gets into his own personal workout regimend and talks about how many push-ups and sit-ups he does, what his diet is like, etc... The boy is then fascinated and challenged about his own self-discipline in comparison to his hero's, and inspired by this testimony is encouraged to start eating less junk food among other things.

Meanwhile, the opposing team's locker room door is not many feet away from the winning team's (I know this is not true in real life, and they're usually on other sides of the arena, but bear with me for this imperfect analogy), and the team's captain is standing within earshot, since there are practically no fans standing around his team's door waiting for an autograph. So for about thirty seconds, he listens to the other player as he shares his morning routine with this little boy, and he balks at it in disgust and mumbles "that guy is so legalistic." In fact, he's bitter listening to the other player because deep down he knows all that excercise has paid off in this man's physical strength, accompanied with the group effort causing the team to be winners consistently. He knows the team dynamic is stronger as a result of practicing together his commitment has paid off. However, instead of this defeated athlete changing his own lifestyle, he just scorns the winning athlete for his success.

You're laughing as you think about that, right? I laugh too when I hear most Christians throw around the word "legalistic" in description or reference to some others' lifestyles. Ok, hockey players won't use the word legalistic in describing self-discipline, I know, but I wanted to replace it with that word to make my point.

Discipline in the Christian life is not legalistic. Try it some time: Try praying in tongues for an hour and then start watching TV and see how your spirit feels. Or, try watching TV for a pro-longed amount of time, and then pray in tongues for at least 15 minutes, and tell me if it's any harder. Tell me the difference your stomach feels between eating a banana and eating a slice of pizza.

I'll never forget when I was sixteen years old my friend Matt was on my highschool's rowing team. He told me one time before a morning practice, he smoked just one cigarette, which he had never done before in his life. Then he went to his practice and used one of the rowing machines, and he said in mere moments he felt a tremendous difference on his lungs, and was out of breath faster. He looked me in the eye when recounting that and said something like "I'm never smoking another cigarette again if that's the difference it makes to my performance." He was focused, he was not going to let the slightest thing hinder him from his goals.

The author of Hebrews told us to do this when he said "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us" (Heb 12:1). But if my experience tells me anything, merely suggesting ways this applies to the Christian life will get me labeled legalistic the instant I name sins or hindrances to a spiritual walk with God. I don't care, I bet star athletes laugh when they hear people in worse physical shape than they talk about how excericise isn't necessary, and that "all hockey players are equally good hockey players". I know bunches of Christians who are entertainment pushers. When you get around them all they talk about is the latest movie or the latest episode of Lost or Survivor. Don't get me wrong, I love a few good TV shows myself now and again myself, but if that's what dominates your fellowship with other people, or dominates enough so as to replace anything in your walk with God--something is wrong. I know a bunch of people, if you even SUGGEST something is wrong to watch, or even listen to--then man, you are just being judgmental and legalistic and out of touch with culture. There's no room for the possibility of improving ourselves and casting off such hindrances. Leonard Ravenhill used to say that entertainment is the devil's substitute for joy.

One time, a friend of mine, very angrily and with a lot of cussing told me that he doesn't fast or speak in tongues and he's "just as close to God as anyone". There's truth, and tragic misconception to that statement simultaneously. Yes, all believers have the same access to the Father, but are all on the same level of intimacy with Him? Does each of us USE that access all the time accordingly? Do we all spend the same amount of time alone in prayer with Him or have the same personal history with Him? Of course not. Fasting, prayer and speaking to ourselves in tongues doesn't get us closer to God than someone that doesn't do any of those things at all. But I guarantee you there's a difference in the lives of those two people. It simply helps remove layers of our flesh and crucify it so that there's less in the way in our relating to God. Prayer, fasting, and praying in tongues don't change God or make Him become closer to us, they fix us. A fruitbearing tree is one that has its roots sunk deep in good soil and gets proper refreshment--all of this is demonstrated in the kind of fruit we bear in our lives.

I can tell you from being a ministry school student and from serving in ministry now, that I have seen first hand the difference between ministering out of the place of intimacy vs. spending my time entertaining myself in my spare time, and seeing a marked difference in both my lifestyle, and my minstry results. I heard someone preaching on this once, and started getting angry on the inside at him when I heard this kind of teaching, because I knew what the "non-sinful things" in my life were that I didn't want to avail myself of...until he said the reason he didn't watch TV or a lot of movies, was because he used to see large crowds during altar calls, and operated dramatically in the prophetic giftings. But he told me the difference came when he let his prayer life slip, and found himself doing more foolish things with his time such as video games and TV. Then when he went to preach he had markedly less results. When he fixed these things in his life, and started communing with the Holy Spirit more again, and cut out of his life the junk he'd let in, he saw the Holy Spirit move powerfully in his life.

Friends, we need a relationship with God on an ongoing basis more than we need correct doctrine about what is allowed and what isn't in the Christian life. Am I negating the importance of correct doctrine? Nope. But I have seen something over the years that shows me many people who overzealously study doctrine are some of the more critical and mean people I know. Some of them will blast you with their assessment of what's wrong in your life, but have no idea how to do so with gentleness and grace--the kind that come from being alone with the Father.

Adding a little personal self-discipline is one of the best things you could do, and is hardly legalistic. Give it some thought. What could you stand to axe from your life?

Do you want to win games at 7pm?