June 21 Daily Devotional

The need of Christian discipline

[The Psalmist] is very sorry for himself. There is nothing wrong with his life. He is a very good man. But he is being very hard pressed, he is being dealt with very unfairly, and even God seems to be unfair to him. That is how he thought about himself while he was outside the sanctuary. But inside the sanctuary all this is changed."... So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee" [Psalm 73:22]. What a transfiguration! What an entirely different view of himself! And it is all the result of his thinking being put right, and made truly spiritual....

This man ... not only reveals his honesty and his sincerity, and the truthfulness that was so essentially a part of his make­up, but als—and this is the thing I want to emphasize—he displays an understanding of the nature of the spiritual life.

In these two verses [21-22] we have this man's account of his repentance.

We learn what he said to himself about himself and, in particular, about his recent conduct. It is, indeed, a classic example of honest self-examination. I invite you to consider it with me because of its important bearing on Christian discipline. This repentance, this state in which a man pauses and looks at himself and talks to himself about himself, is one of the most essential and vital aspects of what is com­monly called the discipline of the Christian life. I do not apologize for emphasizing this again, because it is a matter which is being seriously neglected at the present. How often do we hear about the discipline of the Christian life these days? How often do we talk about it? How often is it really to be found at the heart of our evangelical living? There was a time in the Christian Church when this was at the very center, and it is, I profoundly believe, because of our neglect of this dis­cipline that the Church is in her present position. Indeed, I see no hope whatsoever of any true revival and reawakening until we return to it.

Faith on Trial, pp. 65-6

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Comments on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, A First Book of Daily Readings

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