DISCIPLINE

DISCIPLINE

Blog below by

Rev. Maria Mallory-White

Hebrews 12:5-11 (MSG)

5 So don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either.

6 It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.

7 God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training,

8 the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God?

9 We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live?

10 While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best.

11 At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

“...God is a perfect parent. And if you have a love relationship with Him, you have to live in this knowledge: We live in a world that's broken. There's all kinds of bad things happening to everybody because we live in a world that is broken by evil and sin. Some day God's going to fix it, but for now there's disaster, there's sickness, there's disease, there's death—there's all kinds of suffering, and everyone is involved in suffering. But we are told this: If you create, through faith in Jesus Christ a love relationship with God, God arranges your suffering so that it's discipline. Do you hear me? He says you're going to have suffering, but He's going to arrange suffering so that nothing comes into your life except that which is for [disciplining and not punishing] you."

So our text tells us, “don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either.”

So, let us trust God, our Abba Father, knowing everything that happens in our lives is filtered through God’s hands for shaping us into the likeness of Christ. He is our loving Parent, and even our trials and troubles, God uses to mold us that we may become more like Christ.