SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE..........And how to maintain your Salvation


SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE

Introduction


For a person to maintain his deliverance, he should be spiritually disciplined in addition to living right.  Anyone who has battled with any kind of addiction in the past will also require spiritual discipline to overcome the temptations of the devil to go back from his old life.  Without spiritual discipline, it will be difficult to lead a consistently holy life.  What then is spiritual discipline?

Spiritual discipline is the ability to adapt oneself to the demands of the scriptures in order to fulfil God's purpose on earth.  The personal decision to stand on the word of God and do what the Word says, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it might be.  It is the willingness to restrain yourself and control your thoughts and behaviours that lead to sinful behaviours.

The spiritual discipline covers every aspect of a believer's life, and it is aimed at making a believer conform to the image of Christ.  Spiritual discipline makes it possible for a believer to know what to do or say at each point in time.  It helps the believer to live holy and partake in the divine nature of God and become a candidate of eternal life.

Spiritual discipline helps you to keep your body under subjection.  Imagine if you can control your tongue and speak no guile? how wonderful that will be.  It means no idle words will proceed out of your mouth.  Idle words are faithless words, careless words, corrupt words spoken as jokes, abuses, gossips, backbiting words etc.  They are words that do not please the Lord, words without grace to edify the hearer, as well as every other word of hatred.

Spiritual discipline puts the godly consciousness in us concerning the need to discipline and control our body.  If we cannot discipline our body, it will be hard to please God.  This is because the body is full of flesh without discipline.  In such a state, the Spirit of God cannot live there, and such a body will be rebellious to the things of the spirit of God.  So, we need to discipline our body and our mind also in order to please God.

Disciplining the Body

Our body is a gift from God, and when we receive Christ as Lord and Saviour, the body no longer belongs to us, but to the Lord, who purchased it with His blood at the cross - 1 Cor 6:13. The body is the container that holds our Soul and Spirit.  It is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit in our life, therefore our body must be kept holy inward and outward.  Our heart should be pure and our outward body clean and undefiled.

To discipline the body is to deliberately starve the body of fleshy desires it craves for.  The flesh craves for enjoyment, worldly entertainment, worldly fashion and all the things that the people of the world are doing.  These cravings of the flesh are real because it is with the body, we encounter the world every day and our eyes are seeing what the world is doing, and the canal body is excited and wants a piece of the action.  But, we know that we are not of the world, so deliberately we avoid those things and resign ourselves to fasting and praying.

If we discipline our body, then we are able to present it a living sacrifice unto the Lord, and it is at such times, that our services in the house of God and for God will be fruitful and acceptable by God..  Serving God with a dirty and polluted body will not achieve anything, since the Holy Ghost may not be involved.  To enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit, we must die to sin, evil thoughts and bodily defilement.

We must also take good care of our body because if the body is sick and cannot move, nothing will happen until the body is well again.  Whatever happens to the body affects our goal and dream on earth.

Can a child of God be possessed?

Technically, no demon has the right to possess a born again child of God. But, we have Christians who are still being possessed or tormented by demons. The problem is that a lot of Christians are ignorant of how demons enter into people.  It is so easy for demons to enter the body of Christians who are not sensitive in the spirit and avoid properties of the devil.

In today's world, there are demonic films, through which a person can be possessed by wicked spirits.  There are demonic books and magazines that even teach people about strange gods and witchcraft practices.  There are demonic clothes that a child of God must avoid if they want to be free from demons.  These clothes are directly from the waters, from the marine world to initiate women and men into whoredom.  Clothes with satanic drawings and pictures of satan and demons should be avoided.

Clothes that deliberately thorn in the leg, bum, chest and other places are not clothes that please God.  Also, any Christian who is committing a secret sin, or any kind is under demonic control, and such people will continue to hide and do their evil till the demon disgrace them.  This is why it is important that when a Christian repents from any secret sin, like fornication, adultery, watching evil videos, masturbation etc,  he or she should confess that sin to a matured Christian like his Pastor or an elder of the Church, who can pray for him.  The moment he/she confesses that sin, the repentance is complete and the devil will not tempt him with it again.

 How to Discipline your Body
We need to discipline the entire body and bring it under subjection so that we will not labour in vain. Job made a covenant with his eyes not to look unto a strange maiden, other peoples wives etc.  We will have to take similar steps and bind the members of our body from seeking vanity or to please the devil.  We need to discipline:

1. The Feet - The feet need to be covenanted to Christ and commanded to reject wrong and unholy places.  These are places that do not glorify God or edify our bodies like Night clubs, night parties, beer Parlours, brothels and motels.

2. The Hands -  We should covenant with our hands not to do evil, touch evil and anything that defiles.  Our hands should not be used for evil purposes like giving or taking bribes, beating people at the least provocation.  We should not use our hands for anything perverse, the hands should be kept holy.  It is the hands we lift up to God in praise and worship, touch sick people and they receive their healing.  Our hands are channels for God's power.

3. The Eyes - The eyes is one of the gateways to our heart.  The eyes see and capture pictures we see and such pictures will remain there till the word of God robs it off.  We should also speak to our eyes and covenant it to the Lord, that is should not look on another man's wife or housemaids and young women on the street.  If we can stop the eyes from seeing evil and corruption, our spiritual growth will be rapid, as the soul will not desire what the eyes have not seen.

4. The Mouth and the Tongue - The bible says that anyone who can bridle the tongue, so that he does not sin through the words he speaks will find holy living easy.  The tongue is a necessary evil that must be tamed and covenanted to Christ, so you do not offend by the word you speak.  A believer should be patient and consider the matter before speaking because the devil likes to speak through people.  He spoke through Apostle Paul to discourage Jesus from going to Jerusalem to die.

The devil is an expert in speaking words of discouragement to people.  that was why the Lord asked the children of Israel to turn round the walls of Jericho for seven days, and no one was allowed to speak.  They were forbidden to speak as they carry out the instruction of the Lord because God did not want the devil to speak words of discouragement through one of them to discourage others.  However, they used their tongue rightly on the seventh day, to shout-down the walls of Jericho.  As they shouted in an uproar, the Lord pulled the entire walls of Jericho down.

5. The Ear - We should also covenant the ears to the Lord, and speak to it not to hear evil news, bad report, corrupt jokes, corrupt stories that will make our heart sorrowful or make us think evil.  What you hear and see the influence you more than anything else.  We should speak to our Ears to focus on God and hear the voice of the Lord speaking to us daily.

6. The Mind - We should covenant the mind to think and dwell on good things only. Those things that edify the body, that are of good report.  The bible says as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.  So what we allow our mind to think is going to influence our behaviour and conducts.  The mind and heart should be disciplined to think good and not evil, think positive and not negative.  The mind and heart should think of God and heaven instead of worldliness.  If a Christian is continually thinking worldly, his or her soul is still in the world.

7. Sexual organs - This part of the body should be covenanted to the Lord, not to be used for evil purposes and with a strange person.  In the olden day, it was an abomination to see the nakedness of an older person, man or woman.  The old people would do everything to make sure that children and others, who are not married to them see their nakedness.  This is how it is still with the Lord.  Sexual sin and relationship outside marriage are wickedness before the Lord.
not their spouse  

Other guides to maintaining your salvation

Lead a Holy Life - This requires a change of your thinking and believe systems and how you behave generally.

Grow in the Word - Read your Bible every day, study and meditate on it.  Absorb it into your spirit and do what it says. That is how you can know God.

Pray always - Start every prayer with thanksgiving for the blessings of God upon your life, then ask what you want in faith, and you will receive.

Put off the old nature - Growing in Christ requires that you take stock of your self, rid yourself of old ungodly habits, thoughts and actions, and replace them with the new things of God. Discard yourself of old friendships that induce you to sin. You need to change some habits. If you will retain your old friends, one day they will tempt you with pleasure and before you know it, you have started thinking like them again.

Resist the 'old man' - You should be holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. (Peter 1:15-16)That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.(Ephesians 4:22-24)Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him:(Colossians 3:9-10)

Conclusion
Spiritual discipline is very helpful in moulding a believer to live right before the Lord.  It makes you identify spiritual sacrifices and other requirement and apportion time and days for them.  It commits you to a lifestyle of holiness.  You cannot serve God with a defiled body.  Your heart and body should be consecrated unto the Lord. 

FIRE...

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