How to Build Discipline (According to Christianity)
In this teaching, the speaker argues that discipline is not merely a matter of willpower but a spiritual issue rooted in the biblical concept of self‑control as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. He explains that believers must cooperate with the Spirit, taking responsibility for their thoughts and actions, and avoid the trap of “intention‑only” thinking. The message emphasizes a mindset shift from big, unrealistic goals to small, sustainable steps, encouraging listeners to give themselves grace, focus on progress rather than perfection, and view discipline as a process of sowing spiritual seeds that will be harvested in God’s timing. The speaker addresses common areas where discipline is needed—Bible reading, prayer, physical health, and finances—providing concrete, incremental suggestions for each. He warns against the “big‑goal” mentality that leads to burnout and highlights the importance of attaching motivation to eternal, God‑centered purposes rather than temporary, material desires. Throughout, he weaves scriptural references (Galatians 5, Galatians 6:9, Proverbs 14:23, Isaiah 42:3, Ephesians 5:15) to support his points. The teaching concludes with a corporate prayer, a call for viewers to type “amen,” and a fundraising appeal encouraging financial partnership with the ministry, followed by a teaser for a follow‑up lesson.
Chapters
If you're watching this, there's a good chance you've tried to build discipline before. You made the decision, you started strong, and then a week later, 2 weeks later, you were right back to where you started. And not because you didn't try, but because you just couldn't seem to make it stick. So let me tell you what I've learned. The Bible doesn't treat discipline as just a willpower problem. It treats it as a spiritual problem. And that one shift changes how you go after discipline. I've been teaching believers to walk in the Holy Spirit for 24 years across churches and conferences and events on multiple continents. And here's what I keep coming back to. In Galatians 5, self-control isn't listed as a character trait. It's listed as a fruit of the Spirit. Now notice what that means. Fruit isn't something you just try to force on your own. Fruit is something the Spirit cultivates in you. And there's a specific way to cooperate with that. A way most Christians were never taught. So in the next few minutes, I wanna show you what the word of God says about discipline and why it works the way it does and what you can start doing tonight. So let's open the word and get to the root of the problem. Okay. So you've made up your mind. You wanna begin reading the Bible. You wanna begin praying. You wanna begin taking care of your body. You wanna set your finances in order. You're determined to be disciplined. But then you begin to creep back into your old ways. Old habits start to reappear and you become frustrated with yourself all over again. And you seem to be going in a cycle, determining to be disciplined, maybe starting good, and then going right back to where you began. We need to get to the root of the problem, which is a spiritual issue. Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse number 22. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. Now notice here that Paul the Apostle writes of self-control. You see the partnership of the Holy Spirit and you. The Holy Spirit produces the fruit, but the fruit is of self-control. You have to cooperate. You have to accept responsibility for your partnership or your part in your partnership with the Holy Spirit. He's going to give you the desire. He's going to give you the grace. He's going to give you the help and the support. But you have to begin to make decisions ultimately that cooperate with what the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life. Now, this is where it begins. You have to begin by getting rid of mental laziness. Everything begins with your thoughts. All of your actions, habits, lifestyle, everything originates in your thoughts. And so you have to stop giving yourself credit for what you intend to eventually do. Intention is not Discipline. Intending to get things in order is not discipline. I'll start on Monday when the finances get corrected, when I finally finish school, when everything is at a perfect ideal, then I'll get started, then I'll begin to make decisions that are that of discipline. But you have to start there. Get a hold of that autopilot mode that we all go into sometimes. Where you're kind of just coasting and you take comfort— hear this now— you take comfort in the fact that you intend to eventually get things in order. And because of that, you've given yourself credit as if it's already done. But you have to come to the place where it's not just talk, it's not just thinking about it, but it's actually taking action. Proverbs 14:23 says this: Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty. So you've got to correct that frame of mind. Not eventually. Now. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. Not eventually faith. So now is the time to correct this. And you got to get that in your mind. Don't give yourself another out. Don't give your flesh any more leeway. Make the determination in your mind. It changes today. Okay. Now that you've made that decision, You've begun there. You've corrected the mindset. You've accepted your part in your partnership with the Holy Spirit. You've accepted responsibility for your own procrastination. You've denied yourself the credit just for intention. Where do you go from there? Now, the answer here might actually surprise you because most Christians, once they've determined in their mind and heart that they want to implement discipline, immediately reach for big goals. Now, let me be clear here. I'm a person of faith. You're a person of faith. We serve a big God who can do the impossible, the supernatural, the miraculous. So there's nothing wrong with setting big goals or having big faith. But remember this, when it comes to the practical everyday living, God does the impossible. You do the possible. You have to learn to give yourself some grace. Now, when I say give yourself some grace, I don't mean give yourself permission to fall into your old habits of laziness. I mean give yourself some mercy as you continue to strive for discipline. Here's why you have to give yourself grace. If you give yourself grace, then you won't despair when you make a mistake, and despair often deters us. Despair often keeps us from ever even trying again. So you have to learn this. When it comes to setting your goals, biblically speaking, you must set your goals in practical steps. In other words, rejoice in the small beginning. The scripture tells us in Isaiah 42:3, he will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. In other words, God's not going to snuff it out. It's not in his nature. He's going to add to it Until it becomes a fiery furnace again. God will take that ember, even if it's the slightest desire. God will take that attempt, even if it's a sad attempt at discipline. But you're trying. You're giving your all— your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You're applying yourself. God will add to that. The grace of God, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, Is like interest in a bank account. You have to make the deposits and the Holy Spirit will compound your efforts, but you have to do your part. Remember, it's a partnership. But give yourself some grace. You say, I want to begin reading the Bible every day. Okay, that's good, but you're probably not going to begin with 50 chapters a day. You say, I want to implement the discipline of praying every single day. But you're probably not going to start at the 3-hour mark. Now eventually you want to get there, of course, but don't despise the day of small beginnings. God rejoices to see the work begin. Start with 10 minutes a day in prayer. And I know some Christians might condemn you, oh, you should be praying for 3, or, you know, if you really enjoyed prayer, it would be much longer. I get all that. There's some truth to that. But again, give yourself some grace. There's a starting point. It's not the finish line. Progress, not perfection. Or you say to yourself, you know what, I want to, I want to begin taking care of my physical body. I want to begin exercising and dieting properly. Okay, well, begin with adjustments in your diet. If you go off the deep end and cut out, you know, absolutely everything that you need, and maybe even, you know, salt and sugar, and you go on some wild diet that's all the way on the extreme end, okay, sure, maybe you can lose a few pounds In a matter of a few weeks, but then is that sustainable? Or will you just go back into your old habits again after you've exhausted yourself? So you begin with maybe changing a small thing in your diet. Maybe you like soda, give up soda. Maybe you like fried foods, give up fried foods. Maybe get to the gym and start with some basic workouts. But you start somewhere and you have to give yourself grace for where you start. Or maybe you're saying within yourself, you know what, I want to get my finances in order. This is an area where I'm just out of control. I'm in debt. My spending habits are really bad. I don't give to a ministry that helps to bless my life. I'm just, I'm just not doing as the Bible says with my finances. Okay, start here. Start with giving some to a ministry. Start with taking care of some of that debt. Start with pulling back on your poor spending habits. Set a budget and then work your way toward your goal. But biblically speaking, the kingdom of God starts small but grows in ever-expanding influence. And this is the way it is with discipline— progress, not perfection. Now I know how that sounds because we've likely heard that several times before, but it's possible that you're believing some lies that the enemy is trying to tell you. He, he may tell you it's too late. He may be telling you something similar, like If it was going to happen for you, it would have happened by now, or it's just not in your nature, or this is just who you are, and you feel like no matter how much you try, you just can't seem to find that breakthrough. Look at Galatians 6:9. Galatians 6:9 promises, so let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. You have to keep sowing spiritually. Spiritual seeds. Everything you sow will grow. Whatever you sow, you will reap. Now here's where we get a little frustrated. It's in the timing of that reaping. But I can't sow apple seeds in this season and expect to harvest it now. I have to sow and then wait until the next harvest time to reap those apples. And so what you're sowing now, May not affect you until 6 months from now, a year from now, 5 years from now, but you still have to sow them. Consider this. You are now reaping in the life that you're living today, right now. You are living in the fruit of what you've sown in past seasons. And we don't understand delayed gratification. We think in trees. God thinks in seeds. We want immediate results. We want to see the change right away. And we get frustrated if we don't, we just give up. That's kind of the conditioning that we've been led to have in this generation, especially because of the advancement in technology and convenience. But spiritual dynamics, they don't change. They don't work based on convenience and preference and your timing. What you sow now, you may not see the result of until months from now. And I can't promise exact timing. But I can promise you what the word of God promises is that at the right time, you will reap the harvest. And so you make that determination in your mind. I have to begin to act now, not later, not sometime in the future, not when I think everything is perfectly ideal, but right now you have to act now. And then you have to accept that you're going to start small, that it's going to be progress, not perfection, that you're going to have to make decisions on a daily basis and then recognize that you have to push through the frustration When you feel like you're not getting anywhere. What you sow today is your tomorrow. The decisions you make for your finances today, you're gonna be reaping a year from now. The decisions you make in terms of your physical body today, what you eat, what you don't eat, the exercise you do or do not do, you're gonna reap it later. Your Bible reading, your prayer time, the investment in ministry, the development of character, All of it is going to be reaped at a later date. And so some people sow sporadically, some seasons they sow good, some seasons they sow bad. And so their seasons go up and down. And you may be saying, well, I'm doing good now. Why is it that I'm not seeing the results? Because you're still reaping from the last season. So begin sowing good seeds now and then sow good seeds consistently and in every season. And eventually. You'll begin to reap the fruit of that discipline. I'm not saying everything's gonna be perfect, but I am saying that it will be different. I'm not saying that everything's gonna be exactly as you want it to be, but I will say that it will be better. And we trust in God's timing, and we do the difficult while God does the supernatural. Sow those seeds and recognize that it will happen. That's the biggest lie. Please hear me. Listen to me. That is the biggest lie that discourages people in a way that keeps them from becoming disciplined, is that they tell themselves they're not that person. They tell themselves, it's just not going to work for me. Let God be true and every man a liar. Let God be true and every devil a liar. What you sow will grow. So keep sowing even in the frustration. Now here's something else that's going to help you. As you push through the frustration, as you commit to sowing good seeds of discipline, despite what you see or don't see in this season, you also need a bigger motivation. You see, if we attach our motivation to the things of this world, then like the things of this world, our motivation will be inconsistent. If you attach your passion to the material, Then like the material, that passion will fade. Only when you attach your motivation to the eternal does that motivation continue to be. When we think with the mindset of eternity, we're given that supernatural drive to push forward. Because if you're only living for the things of this world, if you're only living for the here and now or the short term, meaning your lifespan, Then you've missed it. As Christians, we don't just live for the now, though we appreciate it. We don't just live for ourselves, though we take care of ourselves. We live and we think as God thinks. We think in generations and we think in eternity. What will outlast you? And as you attach your motivation to the eternal, now you're driven by something bigger. You're, you're You're focused on something that does not change. Watch this. Ephesians 5:15 says, so be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. God has given you breath and life. He's given you existence in this earthly realm, and you must not waste it. Let your motivation be The heavenly. Let your motivation be souls being saved. Let your motivation be hearing from the Lord, well done, good and faithful servant. Let your motivation be to please God. Let your motivation be the next generation of believers, the next generation of Christians who will come after us, that they may, they may take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Attach your passion to the eternal. And that passion will never fade, and that passion will help to partner with and drive your discipline. Okay, now I want you to pray something wherever you are. Just say this with me: Father, I don't want to only intend to follow you; I want to actually do it. Holy Spirit, help me cooperate with you. Fill my weakness with your strength. Give me the will to take the small steps today, the patience to keep going and sowing even when I don't see results, and eyes that are fixed on eternity, on what lasts. I put my discipline in your hands. In the precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Now hear me, if that was your prayer, I want you to type a big amen in the comment section because someone else who's tired of starting over, who's tired of dealing with discipline issues, needs to To see that they're not the only one. And now I want to take a moment to encourage you to do something that may stretch your faith a little bit. I want to encourage you to support this ministry financially, whether through a single gift or through a monthly gift. Your support is going to help us to continue to reach people all around the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. So if you want to be a part of something bigger, you want to join this Holy Spirit movement, then get involved today. Help to pay this forward. Somebody else sowed to help bring this to you. Now I'm asking you to do your part. Help our ministry expand the kingdom of God. You can go to davidhernandezministries.com/partner to become a monthly supporter. You can go to davidhernandezministries.com/donate to give a single gift. Whatever you do, Please do it today. I need your help. Let's do this for Jesus. And I know that as you sow financially into this ministry, that God will increase your resources. And if you want to go deeper on this, because all of it comes back to walking with the Holy Spirit day by day, I've got a teaching that picks up right where this one leaves off. It'll be right here on the screen. Go watch it next. And until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God.
