But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit]. —1 Corinthians 9:27

Paul is speaking here about self-control, self-denial, restraining the appetite, and subduing the flesh. Self-discipline is keeping yourself going in the right direction without someone making you do so. The problem is that somehow people have gotten the wrong idea that everything in life is supposed to be easy.

Proverbs 6:6-8 talks about the ant, “which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provides her food in the summer and gathers her supplies in the harvest.”

You need to be like the ant. You need to be a person who is self-motivated and self-disciplined; who does what is right because it is right, not because someone may be looking or because someone is making you do it.

From the book Ending Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2004 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.