Foundations of Discipline (2)

He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. Colossians 1.18

Christian vision
First place in everything: This is Jesus, what He intends to be in my life, in all of life, all things, at all times, forever.

What does this mean? Christ pre-eminent, Him filling all things with Himself (Eph. 1.15-23; 4.10), is the aim of the disciplined life, at least, for the Christian. The Christian worldview is Jesus, and us in hot pursuit of Him, bearing fruit in our daily lives of the evidence of His having risen from the dead. We long to know Jesus ruling our souls – heart, mind, and conscience. Increasingly, we seek the vision of Christ to command our thoughts, direct and focus our affections, establish our priorities, and empower our words and deeds – all our plans, hopes, aspirations, desires, efforts, and exertions.

For the Christian, Jesus is the benchmark for everything in life, so that everything in a Christian’s life is disciplined to see, exalt, display, and serve Him. Jesus is the good life. He is everything that is good, and He defines and dispenses true and eternal life (Jn. 10.10; 14.6). See Jesus, see Him clearly and full of glory and majesty, filling all things in all things, and you will happily submit the whole of your life to know, enjoy, and serve Him in everything you do.

Where you look
For too many Christians, however, Jesus is not the aim of their lives, at least, not of their daily lives. Something else is. Maybe it’s even some idea of “salvation” or the “good life”, adjusted to fit our contemporary materialistic way of life. Many Christians believe they will “see” Jesus all right, but only after they have arrived in heaven. In the meantime, and for most Christians, whatever is really good and useful and desirable about life tends to be defined in terms dictated by our increasingly secular age.

Most Christians do not live the kind of disciplined life the Scriptures call for because the focus of their lives is not where it ought to be. For too many of us, the “good life” and the vision of all that matters and all that we hope to attain in life does not come down to Jesus Christ. Jesus is for after this life, and perhaps through this life. In reality, however, we want to make a good living, provide for our families, and enjoy the things, experiences, and conditions which most of our neighbors would agree constitute the good life.

And if our vision of the good life is primarily temporal and materialistic, this would explain why the way we use the time of our lives is devoted only partially to “seeing” Jesus – some prayer here, a little Bible reading there, some worship and small group over there, and maybe even a service project, if time permits. For most Christians, I suspect, Jesus gets maybe 8-10 hours of their week – and that’s being generous. Why, we can’t even devote one whole day to Him; only a portion of the Lord’s Day is actually His. The rest is ours to do with as we please.

The world out of whack
The writer of Hebrews might just as well have been writing in our day when he said that, although God has redeemed His people so that we will put everything in life – all the time and work and activities of every moment of our lives – under our feet for the glory and honor of God the Father, we do “not yet” see this happening (Heb. 2.5-9).

If that was understatement in the first century AD, it’s even more so today.

When the focus of our lives, the aim of our worldview, is the comfortable and secure life of peace and prosperity, this is what we will discipline our time to pursue. And once we’ve achieved as much of this as satisfies us at any given moment, then we’ll simply settle down to indulge our hard-won gains.

But the “world to come” which God has entrusted to us His people (Heb. 2.5) is not the world of getting and spending and self-indulgence, the world of our secular and material counterparts. Rather, the world to come is that of the divine economy, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, which Jesus is advancing even now from the Father’s right hand by His Word and Spirit, in and through every true follower and disciple.

No, we do not yet see all things being put under our feet in ways that honor God and glorify Him. But, the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “we see Jesus.” And if we see Jesus, if we see and desire Him as the aim and goal of every aspect of our lives, and if our vision of Jesus is growing and becoming clearer and more delightful and desirable every day of our lives, then we will take up those disciplines that can help us to capture all the time of our lives, and not just a few hours each week, for Christ and His Kingdom.

We need to keep the aim of the Christian worldview in site at all times. Everything under His rule, according to His good and perfect will and plan: This is when Christ will have the pre-eminence in your life and mine.

Next steps: Suggest some ways a Christian might begin to take back more of the time of His life for seeking “the world to come.” Are we likely to do this apart from a clear and compelling vision of Christ as the aim of our lives? Share your thoughts with a Christian friend.

T. M. Moore

This week’s study, Foundations of Discipline, is part 2 of a 7-part series on The Disciplined Life, and is available as a free download by clicking here. We have prepared a special worksheet to help you begin getting your disciplines in proper shape for seeking the Kingdom. Write to T. M. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for you free PDF of the “Disciplined Life Worksheet.”

A rightly-disciplined life requires a Kingdom vision, and that vision is centered on Jesus Christ exalted. T. M. has prepared a series of meditations on the glorious vision of Christ, based on Scripture and insights from the Celtic Christian tradition. Order your copy of Be Thou My Vision by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.