October 13

Applying Your Heart to Discipline

 
Each and every day, when we open our eyes in the morning, we are given an extraordinary gift: life. There is a purpose for that gift which can only come from our Creator and Lord Master. He gives us 1440 minutes in each day, which represent 1440 opportunities to excel in the wonderful Kingdom of God in which every child of eternity is expected to dwell day by day. Obviously, we could just awaken each day, open our eyes, and apply those 1440 opportunities to ourselves. Some of that is necessary, of course. Self-maintenance is required to some extent to keep the body healthy and in top shape to carry out our mission. But what about the vast majority of those remaining minutes of opportunities? To what do we apply ourselves each day?

Solomon, the Preacher, said to his sons in Proverbs 23:12, "Apply your heart to discipline and your ears to words of knowledge.” We are to apply ourselves to discipline and stay in the Word each and every day that we live. The Hebrew word "apply" used here is quite interesting and most powerful. It can mean to "enter in" or, as here, to "fall upon or attack." It is a word that implies a serious intent to take commanding possession. It is even used in the Old Testament to indicate the act of taking sexual possession. (Genesis 6:4)

We are to take the command and calling to a Godly discipline so seriously that we are to think of it as a lifestyle and life-element that we seize and take by force, integrating it into our life as an essential imperative. In such a way, we are most capable of utilizing each of the 1440 opportunities for their best effect in the eternal Kingdom on this day and all the others to follow.