Christian Bible Lesson 123: Maintain Strength, Judgement, and Discipline

Bible Verses

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

“Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.” – Psalm 27:14

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9

“Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13

Christian Bible Lesson Overview

As we learn in the Bible, It is critical to follow the Ten Commandments.   In order to consistently obey the Commandments, it takes strength, judgment, and discipline at all times to avoid situations that create a strong temptation to break a Commandment.  Probably the most common Commandment broken that could have been avoided is the Ninth Commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”.   

We all know that lying breaks a Commandment, but when we think about it, exercising discipline or judgment prior to the lie may have avoided the situation that leads to the desire to lie.   

For example, a man has a day off from work because of a bonus holiday.  The night prior he told his wife that he was going to wash the car, water the plants, and pull some weeds on the day off from work.  After his wife left for her work, he noticed that a movie was playing at the local theater that he wanted to see.  He decided to go see the movie instead of completing all the work around the house. 

When his wife arrived home that evening, he was faced with the challenge of telling his wife the truth or giving her an excuse for why he did not finish the yard work.  If he told her the truth, he would not break the Ninth  Commandment, but he would experience stress from disappointing his wife.  Regardless of what he decides to do when his wife arrives home if he had exercised strength, judgment, and discipline from the beginning; he would have avoided the challenging situation by either telling his wife that he wanted to enjoy himself on his day off or exercised the discipline to work on his yard instead of going to the movie. 

Christian Bible Lesson for Today

Paul owns a business that provides services to restaurants.  He has been in business for twelve years and supports seventy- six restaurants.  Most of his services support the kitchen.  He provides and supports the appliances such as refrigerators, sinks, stoves, and ovens.  He also provides electrical support for the kitchen and the entire restaurant. 

One of his customers had an electrical failure in the dining room.  Paul sent Bill, a technician, to the restaurant to analyze the electrical failure.  Bill discovered that he needed to replace a circuit breaker.  Bill did not have the exact circuit breaker that failed, but he had one that was similar.  Bill replaced the circuit breaker with the one he had.  The electricity was restored. 

After about an hour, the electricity in the dining room failed again.  Bill did not want to tell the customer that he installed the wrong circuit breaker.  He decided to get the correct circuit breaker, install it, and not let the customer know that the first one was the wrong breaker.  At this point, Bill broke the ninth Commandment because he lied about the reason the electricity failed the second time.

If Bill had been honest from the beginning, he would have made a trip to purchase the correct breaker, but he would have avoided lying to the customer and he would not have had to install the breaker a second time.  In this case, Bill was fortunate because the customer never knew that Bill installed the wrong breaker.  If the customer had noticed, the consequence could have been to lose a customer. 

Christian Bible Lesson Summary

If you analyze times that you have broken one of the Ten Commandments, sometimes you may have avoided facing the situation by having the strength to avoid a situation, the judgment to see the consequences of some actions, and the discipline to make the correct decisions.Exercising strength, judgment, and discipline will help you avoid situations where you are tempted to break the Ten Commandments.