In verse 25 Paul said, “And everyone who contends exercises self-control in all things; they then, that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible.” Paul exercised self-control in all things for the gospel’s sake in order to run the Christian race. He was not loose. This shows us that he endeavored like an Olympic athlete.
If you are disciplined, coached to contend, you must learn how to exercise self-control in everything-in drinking, in eating, in dressing, in combing your hair, in putting on your tie, and even in your laughing or weeping. I saw some brothers laughing uncontrollably and some sisters weeping without ceasing. We need to learn to exercise self-control in our laughing and weeping.
For sixty-eight years I have been under God’s training and my own self-control. This is what makes it possible for me to open up the Word. In 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul told Timothy that he had to learn to cut the word straight like in carpentry. We can expound the word of God in a proper way, in a straight way, by having ourselves exercised to do everything accurately.
When I was in Shanghai in 1947, a few of us co-workers were fellowshipping one day about our work. One sister who was a deaconess came to us in an excited way. She said, “Brother Lee, upstairs in the ceiling there is a big hole.” As she was speaking, she gestured with her hands to show me how big the hole was. I asked her, “How big?” She said, “This big!” The gesture with her hands was slightly smaller than before. I asked her again, “How big?” She said, “Like this.” I asked again, “How big?” She said, “About this big.” Each time I asked, the hole she described became smaller and smaller. Eventually, we found out that the hole in the ceiling was actually very small. If we apply this principle to ourselves, we will realize how inaccurate we are.
I was able to compose those thirty items of the character training by my learning. We need to be trained not merely with Bible knowledge. We want to be trained to grow in life. The things of life grow according to regulation. All kinds of fruit are shaped according to the regulation of the life within them. The shaping takes place by the growth of life. Life regulates. We need to be trained to grow in the Lord’s life. Then we will be regulated. Because of the fall, our humanity is unregulated, so there is still the need of some outward training, which we call character training.
We should be genuine, exact, and strict not only in the church meetings and church service but also in our daily life and in our private life. Where do we put our shoes after we take them off? This shows what kind of character we have. Everything related to how we dress and comb our hair should be proper. We should be clean and neat, and our room with our furniture should also be clean and neat. We should polish our shoes and dust our furniture. Paul said that we Christians are like those who run on a racecourse. To run is to exercise. Even if we use a broom to sweep a certain area, we should not do it loosely and lazily. We should sweep in a strict and diligent way. If we do not take care of things in such a way, this shows our looseness and laziness.
When we go to contact people, we should not go loosely. We must run the racecourse. We should contact them in the right atmosphere and with the right gestures. Our whole being should be exercised to be proper and appropriate in our contact with others. If a young brother is speaking to a man who is about sixty, the way he sits and talks to this man should be in a very respectful manner. He should not sit before this man in a loose way. We have to run the racecourse by exercising self-control in all things. This renders the effectiveness to our preaching. Whether our conversation with a gospel candidate can be effective or not depends upon how we behave ourselves, even how we seat ourselves and what our gestures are. We must take this fellowship as a principle.
Paul said, “I therefore run in this way, not as though without a clear aim; I box in this way, not as though beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest perhaps having preached to others, I myself may become disapproved” (vv. 26-27). Because Paul made his body his slave, he could be enslaved to anyone. He buffeted his body to subdue it, to enslave it. Sometimes we excuse ourselves from serving the Lord by saying that we are tired. But we have to buffet our body and make it our slave to contact people for the Lord’s interests.
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