From the very beginning, God established all creation to function as armies or a host. (Gen 2:1). Plants, insects, birds and animals still strongly function on principles of ranks, honour and order. It is man who fell into the chaos of indiscipline.
God throughout the scriptures is known as 'the Lord of hosts' (1Sam 1:3): the host of heaven and the host of earth. If we are not functioning as an army, we create a disconnect with his original plan.
God sent Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt as an army! (Ex 6:26) Obviously, there is little he could do with a bunch of civilians!
God's Promises and The Army
The failure of Israel to respond to God's command as an army condemned them to wandering in the wilderness. (Num 13)
The promises of God belong to soldiers. When Israel came to occupy the promised land, the Lord revealed himself to Joshua as a soldier with a drawn sword, (Jos 5:15).
Moses was excluded out of the promised land because instead of speaking to the rock on the second time, he still resorted to striking it. The order of an army is by words and not the rod; but years of trying to lead the civilian mindset of Israel had ingrained a civilian leadership code into Moses and technically disqualified him from taking them into the promised land (Num 20:11).
Discipline and Miracles
In Mat 8:5-13, a centurion unconventionally receives a miracle of healing from Jesus for his servant at home, by drawing from his military training and mindset. He is foreign to the worship of Jehovah but jumps the queue of Jews waiting to take Jesus home to heal their sick. Jesus remarks that he had not seen such faith in Israel.
Other examples of exceptionally disciplined people demonstrate the ability to activate great faith against odds and receive miracles from Jesus in a way that made Jesus acknowledge their great faith. The Syropheonician woman, who was herself a gentile and clearly excluded from Jesus' mission (Mat 15:21-28), and the woman with the issue of blood who was an outcast (Mk 5:25), both drew admiration from Jesus for their faith exhibited by exceptional discipline
Discipline and The Soul
The soul comprises the functions of the will, mind and emotions.Discipline is the process re-enthroning the will over the mind and emotions.
In God's original creative order, the mind (thoughts) and the emotions (feelings) were created to serve under rule of the will (principles).
The mind and emotions work together to process all experiences under the governance of the will. The will is only enthroned if it is established in God's eternal principles. If the will is established on any other truth other than submission to God's will, is collapses to the rule of the mind and/or emotions.
God's Word and Spirit only optimally work in a soul with an enthroned will. The will is God's appointed leader of the soul and he will not bless any other regime.The process of re-training yourself to live by your will is the making of a soldier
Discipline and The Body
True discipline encompasses the spirit, soul and body, (1Thess 5:23).To bring ones soul into discipline, it is essential to use the 'handle' of the body which is more accessible through exercise and other exerting disciplines like food and rest regimes, (1Cor 9:24-27)
The body is the ultimate steward of all discipline and lifestyle. Until the body is re-trained and sanctified, any headway made or victory experienced will be easily lost with time. This is because, all spiritual and soul processes must ultimately become habitual, subconscious and natural to you through an embedding process.
For anything to become habitual, subconscious and natural, it must be adhered to and practiced consistently for anywhere between 28-66 days. This enables new neural pathways to be established in your brain and for the old ones to be dismantled. Also, the conditioning of your hormonal and other physiological functions must be converted to support the new way of living.
We believe that it is the residual rebellious habits practised over many years residing in our body function that the scriptures may refer to as 'the flesh'. Therefore discipleship is not complete until our bodies are reconditioned and flesh is crucified by the power of the Spirit (Rom 8:13).
