To Bind and Loose....

1 Cor. 9:25-27

There are 2 types of pain in life.

Trials - these are the pains that are afflicted to you from the outside.

....cancer

....losing a job

....parents divorce

....someone breaks your heart

....someone close dies

....etc. (I could make a long list)

Discipline - these are the pains that you bring to yourself by denying your desires

.....Fasting/Dieting

.....Give away our $$$, our time, our energy, etc.

.....Not watching TV

.....Not judging even if you know your right

.....Praying

.....Reading the Bible instead of Twilight

.....Helping others

What's real is trials and discipline bring you closer to God and make you spiritual mature.

Trials you don't necessarily control, Discipline you do.

We live in a ME society. iPhone, iPod, iPad, My Playlist, My Diet, My Shows, My Style,......Me Monsters is what we are. We rarely suppress ourselves.

So when the church tries to tell you to subject yourself to Christ and to other people, there is crickets. Nobody whats to serve, because you serve yourself in every other aspect of life (myself included).

I will say this... we are good at serving with our mouths, but that isn't Biblically sound at all.

Heck... We live in a culture where leaders of churches make more than the congregation. The people called to serve, teach, and live as Christ did show us that subjection doesn't apply to ever aspect of their live (especially the wallet).

We need Discipline. We need to tell the "Me Monster" ....No.

Find something that you want/desire. Tell it "No".

Once you tell it "No" long enough, that desire dies. Then you move on to the next and it's not a discipline anymore.....It who you've been transformed into (Romans 12)