“Here’s the point: elite athletes don’t live disciplined lives because they think disciplined lives are virtuous. They aren’t stoics; they’re hedonists — pleasure-seekers. They live disciplined lives and endure all kinds of self-denial because they want the pleasures of the prize.”

LeBron James is the most dominant player in the NBA today, and some argue he’s the best player ever. He’s earned the moniker “King James.” His dominance, however, doesn’t result from his elite, God-given athletic talent alone. He keeps his body in peak condition through an extremely disciplined and rigorous workout and diet regimen.

Nearly every day of every year, James subjects himself to grueling physical exercise and stringently-controlled nutrition and hydration routines. In fact, he spends $1.5 million a year continually subjecting himself to things the vast majority of us continually avoid. Why?

Because he prizes NBA championship trophies, a growing list of personal achievements, accolades, and records (already a mile long), and all the benefits that come with those trophies and success. King James exercises tremendous self-discipline and endures a great deal of unpleasantness for the sake of what gives him joy.

James knows the secret to self-discipline (consciously or unconsciously), a secret that applies to all of us: joy. The secret is not that each rigorous exercise of self-denial gives us joy. The secret lies in the prize — what we’re willing to endure self-denial to have.

Power in the Prize

In the Bible, this is not a secret. Paul knows exactly why Lebron James spends more than a million dollars on his body:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24–27)

Here’s the point: elite athletes don’t live disciplined lives because they think disciplined lives are virtuous. They aren’t stoics; they’re hedonists — pleasure-seekers. They live disciplined lives and endure all kinds of self-denial because they want the pleasures of the prize. They believe the pleasures of the “wreath” (or medals, trophies, rings, and records) are superior pleasures to the pleasures of self-indulgence.

The Imperishable Prize

Notice that Paul doesn’t call their pursuit of reward wrong. Far from it. Paul shamelessly states that the pursuit of a reward also fuels his self-discipline and should fuel ours. The only difference — and it’s a big one — is that the reward he pursued was an “imperishable” wreath, which he describes here:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)

Gaining Christ through the gospel — gaining all of God and all his promises to his cross-reconciled children for all eternity and losing all sin and all death and all hell and all their accompanying miseries — was the reward that gave Paul his laser-like focus and fueled his self-discipline.

The power for self-discipline does not come from admiring self-discipline. It does not come from wishing we were more self-disciplined. It does not come from making new resolves, plans and schedules for self-discipline (though these help when the fundamental motivation is right). It certainly does not come from loathing our lack of self-discipline and resolving (again) to do better — and this time we mean it. The power for self-discipline comes from the prize — whatever we really want, the reward we believe will yield us the greatest pleasure.

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