"Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty." (1 Corinthians 9:26) Too many people of today are obsessed with entertainment, sports, materialism, and emotional gratification. Those excessive preoccupations have become the marks of our shallow, amoral, and often immoral society. Some time ago President Theodore Roosevelt essentially predicted those results when he said that prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the getting rich theory of life would eventually destroy America. The cure to such a lifestyle is the self-discipline evidenced in the genuine Christian life. Our spiritual guidance and power come from the Lord, but we must have self-discipline if the Lord is to work effectively through us. Paul wrote to Timothy, "For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come" (1 Tim. 4:8). We should ask God to make that true in us!