How People Grow - 12/7/2009

Today's Mental Image:

You Must Have A Relationship To Grow

How People Grow

by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

-

FINDING THE RIGHT CLIMATE

Session 7c

The Role The Body Plays In Growth:

"The BIBLE,
years of research and experience
back up this biblical
reality:"

You Must Have A Relationship
To Grow!

ONE OF THE ROLES THE BODY PLAYS:

I

Discipline & Structure:

          "I just need more self-discipline," Jerry told me.  "I know I have all of this potential to reach my goals, but it seems as if I just can't make myself get around to doing it all."

          "Where are you going to get this 'self-discipline'?" I asked.

          "What do you mean, 'Where am I going to get it'?"

          "Well, just what I said. You don't have any self-discipline.  If you had it, you would have done the things you haven't done.  So I agree with you.  You need 'self-discipline.' I just want to know where you are going to get it, because you obviously don't have it.  And If you don't have it to give yourself, I want to know where you are going to get it."

         "By disciplining myself."

         "You're not 'getting' it," Isaid.  "If you could disciplineyourself, you woundn't need self-discipline.  You would have it.  But you don't.  So, again, where are you going to get it?"

          He looked at me with one of those looks that is a cross between insight and a deer caught in the headlights.  I could see that he "got it." His chances of disciplining himself were nil.  To delude himself one more day would have bee to set himself up for more failure.

          "I don't guess Iknow.  Where can I get it?" he asked sheepishly.

          "Well, it's not hard to figure out.  EVeryone gets it the same way.  SElf-discipline is always the fruit of 'other discipline.'  Some people get disciplined by other people earely in life and then internalize it into their character; then they possess it themselves.  Other people don't get disciplined early in life,  and they don't ever have self-discipline until they get it from others and internalize it for themselves.  It's not rocket science; it's the way God designed us to grow.  Others discipline us, and then we can do it for ourselves.  Kind of like everything else in life -- we get it by receiving it from others (as it says in 1 Corinthians 4:7)."

          "How?  How do I get disciplined by others?"

from

How People Grow

Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

This receipt of discipline, says Drs. Cloud and Townsend, comes from the Body of Christ (the structure) through accountability and our meetings together where development of discipline is not an accident but an expected agenda - an expected, accepted, and coveted people dynamic as, under the leadership of the Spirit, the headship of Christ, each believer does his part.  The scripture links below point out that dynamic.

Matthew 18:15-17; Galations 6:1-2; Titus 3:10; Proverbs 15:12; 1 Corinthians 12:21-26

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