Stojan Gajicki
The word “discipline” is an unpopular word of today’s man. Without a life goal and motivation, today’s man does not find strong enough reasons to discipline his life. Very few Christians find it necessary to live disciplined. To say at the outset what I mean by that: to live disciplined does not mean to live “under the law.” Discipline is giving priority to things that have eternal significance. Because the small pleasures of this life keep us in power, as Christians we have not achieved more than we have. By discipline I do not mean asceticism either. God’s people have the right to enjoy and “give themselves moments of rest and pleasure”, but the question is what place do good moments take in my life.
Spiritual laziness is the main problem of God’s people. When God gave them the promised land, the Israelites came to Joshua muttering that they had inherited a small portion. Jesus’ answer was, in Joshua 18: 3, “How long will you hesitate and not go and take the land that the Lord God of your fathers has given you?” The Israelis (some of them) wanted to be served everything. Pastor Joshua was supposed to take care of everything related to their inheritance. Many Christians today do the same. They are lazy to take God’s word and promises to themselves, and all the time they blame the pastors for their poor Christian life.
I – DISCIPLINE IN THE USE OF TIME
In Ezekiel 3: 24 to 4:11 describes a way of life of the prophet that can give birth and be full of blessings and for the benefit of others.
Planning is considered almost unspiritual in certain Christian circles. How the Spirit guides us is a common phrase among such. It is true that there is another side that has let the Spirit know that reason is from God and that He does not have much to do there. There is a need for balance. Organization must not cast out the Spirit because then we are in religion. Spontaneity must not drive out discipline because then we are in danger of attributing all responsibility to the Spirit and even becoming fatalists by saying, “That’s what God wanted !?”
In verse 24 comes the command from the Lord for a prophet. Isolate yourself for a while, don’t run everywhere, to all conferences, you don’t have to be present in every religious soup. There are pastors among us who take pride in their “charged” programs thinking it is spirituality. Their common justifiable phrase is, “One should work for the Lord while it is still day.” However, the Lord did not want Ezekiel to just run under the pretext: “For the Lord!”, But he wanted him to listen to what he had to say to him and only then to speak and work.
We rarely think of Jesus’ thirty years of preparation and “silence.” We rarely mention Paul’s fourteen to sixteen years spent out of the public eye. God wants to speak to us and be with us, and if we don’t give Him time, how will that happen?
Ezekiel seemed to have this habit of working and being always on the move “for the Lord”. That is why God had to bind him! (verse 25). His spirit was restless. A hundred things needed to be done. If he does not lead the service, there will be no blessing, if he does not pray, there will not be such a strong prayer hour … The Lord wanted to calm him down and direct his thoughts and heart to those things in which he wanted to use him. Other Christians, on the other hand, have too many things for their private lives: weekends, cars, trips, hobbies, friends … Paul didn’t care. In Acts 20:24, he says that he is “bound in spirit” and that he cannot put anything else in the first place in his life until his vocation – to preach the Gospel. Brother and sister, if you think it’s just for Paul and the pastor’s brother, you’re so wrong. The same goes for you! Salvation is also your call to “go and tell others what the Lord has done for you!” Are you planning a little time in your day for the Lord and for a possible task when he has it for you, or is your day already so busy in advance that, “Unfortunately, I will not arrive today, and I would like to”? Brother pastor, are you planning a few moments with the “employer” today, or is the day already so crowded with visits, pastoral care, meetings, conferences … Maybe the Lord will have to bind you to give you the opportunity to be with you for a few hours.
In Ezekiel 4: 4-8 explains why the Lord had to bind him: for prayer – for what is most important. The situation was so serious that Ezekiel had to set aside a total of one hundred and ninety days on one occasion and forty other days just for prayer. He couldn’t turn around and look at other things. He needed discipline in prayer to be a prophet – the voice of God to his people. To many of us, as we pray, the thought comes that we should do that, or as we read the Bible, that we have forgotten to do this. We are able to abandon prayer and the Bible immediately because of the importance of the other. If God and time with Him became so important to us that nothing would take us away from our cellar for that hour or two, because there, in the cellar, in the encounter with God, awakening is born and miracles happen.
In John 21:18, the Lord tells Peter about the change he will experience. He was one of the “mentioned”, whose spontaneity prevented God from doing more in him and through him. He wanted everything for the Lord everywhere, to the extent that the Lord could not do with Him what He wanted. We turned Matthew 6:33 today. Let’s look at ourselves. First we look for everything else and then we wonder how much time we have, if we have it, for the kingdom of God. Matthew 8:21 is a picture of many of us. God, I want to do Your will, but I just need to buy a better car, add something to the house … Time is wealth. How do we who are the prophetic people on this earth use it? Let us stop, think, and begin our daily planning and give the Lord enough time (Ephesians 5:16; 1 Peter 4: 7).
2 – DISCIPLINE IN THE USE OF LANGUAGES
Jacob knew the importance of that little limb. Jacob knew the power of words. He knew that God created heaven and earth by the Word, by speech, Jesus knew that: “By your words you will be condemned or justified” was a sentence known to the people of the first period of the Church. Ezekiel knew this. The Lord shut his mouth and could speak only when God spoke to him (verse 27).
Malachi 3:16 says that the Lord listens when His children talk. “Poor Lord,” we might say, for our conversations are usually not much different from those of the ungodly. What shocked me among us Christians, especially among the young people in this country, is the following: if we talked about football, told jokes and similar empty conversations, everyone would have something to say. When the time came to glorify God and pray, a “strange silence” would ensue. Of which the heart is full of that and the mouth speaks. You have to learn to say the right thing. But that is not the most important thing either. The right thing is right only when it is said at the right time. There was a period in my life when I would say the right things in my impatience but at the wrong time. No one would have experienced it if it had been a blessing. Someone else would say the same thing half an hour behind me, but it was a blessing, because he was waiting for the opportunity and the moment when it was time for that.
Proverbs 10:19 says that an abundance of words is not without sin. Paul counsels young Timothy to give up empty talk (1 Timothy 4: 7). Elsewhere, God’s word tells us not to use ambiguous jokes. Not being able to stand at the right moment in your speech, in jokes, can cost more than we think. Let us discipline our language so that we can be a channel for the Word of the living God, for the Word that can bring life to others. We talk about the Lord and His mighty works when we are together, let’s build each other up.
3 – GENERAL DISCIPLINE OF LIFE
Ezekiel received from God a description of a lifestyle that could be the most blessed and the most fruitful. Verses 4: 9-11 describe the attitude toward eating. Many Christians have the same attitude as in Ecclesiastes 2:24. Their Christian life was reduced to enjoying food, drink and daily work. For many, such a poor life is a consolation for a missed spiritual life. But God has a way out. Don’t let the lifestyle of people who have no eternity be yours. God has more than “belly pleasure” for you.
Genesis 6: 1-8 describes a way of life that can lead you to great blessings. No, that is not asceticism! That is the priority of things: giving priority to what has a better fruit, what gives a better result, what is important for eternity. In Philippians 3: 7-10, Paul showed what is more important, what is really worth putting first.
4 – BE IN THE WORLD BUT NOT FROM THE WORLD
All that the Lord has done with Ezekiel and what He wants with you and me, has its goal and that is to have a people who will live in the world but not as the world. To have people in the world who will point to the better with their lives – the kingdom of God. Ezekiel had a wall between himself and the city in which he was. 4, 3 shows that God told him to put a wall between himself and the city and then speak to that city.
The great cities of the world in which we live are the nests of sin. The spirit of the city we are in can affect us if we do not fence ourselves off in our spirit from the spirit of the city we are in. There are cities where homosexuality is rampant, others where rock music has a special place or where football is everything. Many Christians come under the influence of the spirit that reigns in the city in which they live. 2 Peter 2: 7-8 describes the sufferings in the spirit that Lot experienced because of the sin of the city in which he lived. How are you and me in the city where we live? Have you fenced off or given way to the spirit of football, rock music … that rules the city where you live. Oh, may God give us the sin of the city in which we live is an occasion to bind ourselves to prayer and not the temptation to follow it. Revelation 18: 4 calls for God’s people at all times: “Come out of her, my people.” I believe that there is a special court over the great cities of this world. Am I an accomplice to what is going on in it or am I surrounded by it. Do I live only in it or perhaps also from what is in it? This is all a matter of discipline. The question is: do we, God’s people, understand our role in this world? even though we are only newcomers, God did not imagine us leaving here without the world knowing that we existed. Before we leave, we need to point out to them that where we are going already exists in us.
The kingdom of God is in us. Let us infect this world, the city in which we are, with the principles of the kingdom that is eternal, in which Christ himself is the King. Isn’t that reason enough to plan what to give more space in our lives? Isn’t that enough to give our time, language and other things in this life to one hundred percent use of the Holy Spirit? Something is saying inside me – yes, amen! You are worthy of CHRIST. Here I am, take me!
IZVORI, 6/1984.