Why is personal discipline important?

Proverbs 1:7Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Proverbs 23:23Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment.

Personal discipline, not innate talent or intellect, is often the deciding factor between success and failure. This is particularly true when training ourselves to respond with God’s wisdom rather than our own hunches and narrow experience.

1 Kings 10:23–11:6So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. . . . Now King Solomon loved many foreign women. . . . The Lord had clearly instructed the people of Israel, “You must not marry them [foreign women], because they will turn your hearts to their gods.” Yet Solomon insisted on loving them anyway. . . . In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, as his father, David, had been. Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; he refused to follow the Lord completely, as his father, David, had done.

Our self-discipline, or lack thereof, can greatly affect the welfare of others around us. Our lives have the power to help others or to harm them, to lead them toward God or away from him.