Perseverance Brings a Harvest
Have you ever started something new and gave up after a few tries? Maybe you tried to create a new morning routine or Bible reading habit, only to give up after a few weeks? It can be hard to build enough discipline to start something new.
It is also hard to receive discipline from someone. Maybe you remember being disciplined as a kid by your parent. Or maybe you’ve been disciplined at work for a mistake you made.
In either case, discipline is hard and takes a lot of work.
Scripture says that for those who endure discipline and persevere, there is a harvest of righteousness and peace waiting for them. However, it doesn’t happen easily and often makes us uncomfortable. We have to be trained through discipline to create godly habits that will then produce righteousness and peace in our lives.
Take some time today to consider: Where can you allow the Holy Spirit to build discipline in your life? What daily habits should you begin working on today?
It’s always worth building discipline because the result is peace and righteous living.
Don’t Lose Heart
As we start getting older, our bodies begin to change.
Muscles might ache. Hair might gradually turn gray. Vision and hearing might eventually get less sharp. And we, or someone we love, might even struggle with significant or devastating health challenges.
The apostle Paul once offered some ageless wisdom to the believers in Corinth, Greece, which can still be helpful for us today:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
Paul knew what it was like to face hard things; he’d been beaten, shipwrecked, snake bitten, and imprisoned.
Earlier in the letter, he’d said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)
The ripple effects of sin’s existence in the world might frustrate us physically, but it ...