I grew up in a small Pentecostal holiness church in the foothills of South Carolina. Good people. Sincere people. Many of them had seen a real move of God.
They also had rules. No movies. No bowling alley. No roller skating. No parties. No dances. So what could I do? I could go to church.
I didn’t have their experience yet, only their rules. And discipline without devotion often leads to rebellion. That’s what happened to me, until college, when I had a real encounter with God.
Something changed. A burning devotion woke up in me. I wanted to pray. I wanted to be in His Word. I wanted to please Him. And my life started to become more disciplined. Not because someone handed me more rules, but because I’d found Someone worth the discipline.
That’s the order: discipline follows devotion. You will never discipline yourself into devotion. But when you find Someone worth being devoted to, the discipline starts to make sense.
Paul said it like an athlete: “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” He wasn’t white-knuckling his way to holiness. He had his eyes fixed on a better prize.
Sunday we looked at Esau, who traded his birthright for a bowl. His appetite was screaming in the present, so he couldn’t see the future. Most of us aren’t tempted to give God up all at once. We just trade a little of what matters most for what we want right now. One bowl at a time.
The answer isn’t “Stop it.” It isn’t “Starve yourself.” The strongest no is born from a greater yes.
Here’s what I’ve seen in pastors and leaders: we can stay disciplined long after the devotion has gone quiet. We still show up and still preach. But the fire that made it all make sense has cooled.
If that’s you, don’t start with a new rule. Start with your first love. I wrote Still Burning for exactly that moment: five short emails from Jesus’ letter to the church in Ephesus, each with a simple daily step back to worship, the Word and witness.
Feed the greater hunger. The discipline will follow.
danielknorris.com/still-burning
(1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Genesis 25:29-34; Revelation 2:1-7, ESV)