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Holy Spirit Empowered Discipline
Self Discipline – doing something you don’t like in order to get or achieve something that you place a higher value upon; correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement.
Thesis: Allow the Holy Spirit to empower you today with the self discipline you need to govern your life in a way that causes maximum impact for God, maximum destruction to the kingdoms of darkness, and maximum blessings for you and your family.
2 Timothy 1:7
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
- Timidity
- Power
- Love
- Self-Discipline
Fearfulness: "cowardice and timidity“ lacking in boldness or determination
Power - dunamis, refers to intrinsic power or inherent ability, the power or ability to carry out some function, the potential for functioning in some way power, might, strength, ability, capability, the power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature.
Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Why Have the Holy Spirit?
Luke 24:49
“I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
John 16:7
But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
The only way John 16:7 is true is if you and I carry on the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus was doing a great job so for him to go, and it be good, it must mean that you and I will be endued with power to perpetuate the ministry of Jesus in the Earth as his chosen vessels.
Jesus died so we could receive the Holy Spirit. Don’t treat the Holy Sprit like he’s not important or a 3rd class citizen of the trinity. He’s God and He empowers you and I to be the kind of people that are pleasing to God.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
If we don’t know what to do it creates timidity or indecision but when we have a clear word of instruction, it becomes actionable intelligence. This is when we, as God’s people, must seize the kairos moment God is presenting before us.
Agape Love
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
The Greek word for soundness of mind or self-discipline is sophronismos. Sophronismos is derived from the Greek word sophron which literally means, “to save the mind”.
If you and I are to do what God’s called us to do we must have a certain level of mastery over our own minds.
Sometimes our own worst enemy is ourselves and how we see ourselves. We have meditations about ourselves that others don’t know about and we end up fulfilling these secret meditations.
We must allow the Cross of Jesus Christ to penetrate and permeate every part of our personalities and allow Christ’s Word by His authority to re-program our minds allowing us to see ourselves the way God sees us.
It’s one thing to pick yourself up by your boot straps and do the right thing for a season hating every minute of it, only to find yourself after a month, six months or a year going right back to whatever destructive behavior we were partaking of. It’s another thing to allow the living God to reprogram your wants and desires changing us on the inside.
I heard a man say one time, “If we could do what we knew to do, we’d all be rich, happy and skinny.” I thought that word was perhaps a bit harsh but there was truth in it.
The key is to have mastery over our thinking and our thought lives. The Holy Spirit gives us sophronismos (self-discipline) as a promise. None of us has to be a victim of our own thought lives anymore. There is power available from heaven to prompt and direct us to choose what is best and then the power to act on the choice.
Train and Run to Win!
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
Law arouses sinful passions
Romans 7:4-6
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
What is the law of the Spirit of life found in Romans 8:2? The law of the Spirit of Life is the guidance of the Holy Spirit as He gives us the desire to live a holy life, wisdom concerning how to overcome the world, bodily passions and self-will, and the power to choose holiness in place of spiritual uncleanness.
Allow the Holy Spirit to empower you today with the self discipline you need to govern your life in a way that causes maximum impact for God, maximum destruction to the kingdoms of darkness, and maximum blessings for you and your family.
Jubilee Family Church45 Thunderbird Dr. Batesville, AR 72501 (870) 793-9124