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Discipline

These are soundbites from Phil Pringle's 'Strategies for Success - Discipline'

- 'I can understand why people believe in evolution. Before our spirit came alive, our body is an animal! We're driven by animal instincts, our lusts, emotions, desires.'

- 'Jesus: Go, therefore and make disciples...'

-' What makes a disciple? You need discipline.'

- 'Your emotions, your desires, hopes, dreams, passions, intellect - your hold being, is held together by one single thread. That is your will, your choice.'

- 'Say with me, discipline. I know, it's hard to say isn't it. We're more used to saying things like, 'FREEDOM!'

- An undisciplined, undiscipled life, is like a wild horse, a brumby, running out there in the wilderness. Oh, it looks beautiful you know, free, inspiring but basically, it's useless. Yea, you can't use it for anything, it won't obey you, it's energies and strengths won't be harnessed by anyone for anything useful. It just runs around all day, and other than serving as pictures for people to look at and say 'that's freedom', it doesn't do anything else does it?'

- 'Jesus wants to harness that wild horse in us - the emotions, the lusts, the depression, the fears and passions -'

- 'Freedom - do we really know what that is? Freedom is having the ability to remain unmolded by your circumstances. No matter what your circumstances are, you choose to be happy, and you are! I mean, it's great to be happy spontaneously, but there will come times when you need to make a choice to stay joyful. Rejoice! That's a command in the Bible!'

- 'Discipline your emotions, body, your finances. Integrate all of them to follow and live out your beliefs.'

- 'Choose to be free. Choose to be clean. Choose to be faithful. Choose life.'

- 'What does it mean to take up the cross daily? Jesus calls all of us to lay down our lives and pick up our crosses - only then can we follow Him. Instead, I've seen many people put down their crosses, and take up their lives.'

- 'Pick up your cross. Pick up - you need to have a degree of acceptance and love for it to pick something up. Embrace your cross! The Christian life is all about self-denial; i may feel like picking up those pornographic magazines, but NO, I discipline myself and deny that to my flesh. Love that cross, that part of your life which just kills you, makes you wish you were dead, makes you cry out to God to just remove it from your life. Embrace it! It kills your flesh!'

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