God's spellcheck

I'm excited this morning because I believe God is trying to show me how to view discipline from a new perspective...namely, His. Just thought I would share what I felt the Holy Spirit showing me this morning. Because I feel in the midst of this lesson, it definitely is ministering to me. I hope that it's an encouragement to you as well!

For this passage, I'm going to substitute the term 'son' for 'child' right now. I feel as though that has a more personal connotation for me than reading the term 'son' for obvious reasons.

Hebrews 12:5-11,
"And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his child? It says,

“My child, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His children.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."


 Okay - gonna break this down to explain how I felt the Holy Spirit was breaking it down for me this morning.

"And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his child? It says, “My child, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,"

-First of all, it's like God was saying to me directly, "Jenny - have you forgotten that this is an encouraging Truth?! The discipline that you experience is confirming that you are My child! In other words, know that there is a purpose for what is going on; it is more than just coincidence or something to just 'let roll of your back' or to be shaken by, but it's an opportunity to seek My face and to know that I'm in this. Find Me in it!

"and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a child."

-A pastor that I work closely with recently gave a message on parenting, and he stressed the fact that when we, as human parents, parent and discipline our children, it must come from a place of love. We must have a relationship with our children in which they know that we love them and have their best in mind, first and foremost. If a child doesn't know that you love them - whether from neglecting to meet their needs, a lack of time spent with them, or maybe even just from not knowing how they receive love so that you don't know how to express it in a way that they receive it as love - whatever the reason, if you then approach them in terms of rebuking and correcting their behavior, they will rebel. They will get defensive.

Because they feel alone. They don't know that you have their best in mind, and so they feel they have to be the only one that will take up that banner for them.

So, thinking about this scripture, I see the truth and emphasis now of connecting the Lord's discipline with His love, because we have to believe that God is for us - that He has our best in mind - and that there is purpose in what we're facing in order to receive the discipline (in whatever form) as for our good as well.

And as parents, we can recognize that our children need discipline. They need someone that will instruct and guide and correct them as they're learning to maneuver through life. And so we, as children, need that as well from our Father.

I don't know about you, but rebuke to me has always seemed like a harsh word. Other translations say 'correct.' I prefer that term. It makes me think about someone correcting my grammar or spelling. And I.love.spell check.
I do.
I love that I can click a little button and it shows me my mistakes, so that I can correct them and the entire world doesn't have to know that my typing is less than proficient. I may type fast...but not necessarily accurate.  Hard to imagine the world before spell check.

We need to be able to not only receive God's correction when He gives it, but we need to get to a point where we go to Him, we initiate, like turning on the spell check function on our current device.  We need to ask God to examine our hearts and check its condition."Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So, be earnest and repent." Revelation 3:19

"Endure hardship as discipline;"

-whew. Do I see the difficulties I face, the hard situations, the changes that I don't welcome in my life, as the Lord's discipline? Do I see that He is wanting to use these things to develop in me the character that He desires for me to have - one that trusts Him, that submits to His authority and the authority that He places in my life, and one that even welcomes these opportunities because I know that it means that He is accepting me as a child, a child that He is will protect and provide for?

"God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all."

-'everyone undergoes discipline' - What is key in this process is perspective, being able to recognize  what we're facing as God's method of disciplining us. Sometimes I tend to think of discipline in the form of correction and a consequence for sin, but discipline is also learning the correct way to handle something as well. It's strength-training, it's working out spiritual muscles so that they are able to handle the weight of life without breaking and faltering. So, we must ask for God's eyes to see what we're facing for what it is - His orchestration of events in order to accomplish His purposes.

And an exciting thing about this is that it allows us to feel like we're more a part of God's family. We know that individuals love us when they can speak truth to us, putting the condition of our relationship ahead of the 'ease' of the relationship. If I have sin in my life, it's LOVE for someone to confront that in me, because from there I can move into repentance and change and freedom. It's not easy, though...but it's that person telling me they care more about me than what I may think of them in that moment.

And so God is willing to create waves in our lives, and in our relationship with Him, because He knows that it's for our good and that it will ultimately allow us to have a closer, more intimate relationship with Him. I've experienced that with God, and I've experienced that in human relationships. I'm much closer to those individual in my life that are willing to go through conflict with me, and see it out to the other side, than those that avoid and neglect.

"Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness."

-Discipline is part of our inheritance. It's part of the whole package of the eternal salvation that we received when Christ died on the cross. John 1:17 says that we receive both grace and truth through Jesus Christ (see here). Grace means that our sins are pardoned and God's truth then begins to transform our lives to look more like Christ. We want to receive God's grace, readily and freely and desperately, but in the same way, I pray that we will receive God's discipline - His truth about our condition and instruction on how to change it - with the same readiness and desperation. 

In the same way, upon completion of a document, that we would click spell check, I pray that we would get to a place in our lives where we can approach the throne of GRACE with confidence, laying our hearts before the Lord for His perusal. 

Because

we know that we're not the best spellers,
that there are some apostrophes out of place,
that we have random commas lying around, 

 and we need God to reveal to us the things that need to be addressed, changed, and even deleted.

When we receive & accept the Lord's discipline, we are submitting to His authority and further stepping into all that He has for us - His inheritance that we are now qualified to receive because of His sacrifice on the cross. (Colossians 1:12)

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful."

-Um, yeah. 

"Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

- I do pray that God would give us eyes to see the Hope to which we have been called to (Ephesians 1:15-23) - hope beyond our current condition, knowing and trusting in the fact that the discipline we receive is shaping us more into Christ's image, who is our Hope.

The word 'trained' makes me think of how we will seek out a trainer at a gym, asking for their instruction and guidance in order to reach the exercise or weight-lifting goals that we're pursuing. But a trainer's advice and instruction is worthless unless we receive it and respond accordingly.

God knows us so intimately that He can identify the weak 'muscles' in our lives that need to be strengthened. In His Omnipotence, He knows what we will face in the future and what will be require for us to prepare us for those battles, those challenges, those sacrifices. And so He orchestrates, allows -however you want to put it- the discipline in our lives in order to strengthen us, in Him, to face them. He wants to set us up to succeed, if we will just receive both the pleasurable and not so pleasing things from His Hand.

Lord, may we learn to accept both the pleasant and unpleasant things in life as from Your hand. May we be so enveloped in Your love for us, to know Your love so intimately, that we recognize that You are for us. May we trust Your ways, which are not our own, because we trust You. May we focus our eyes on the Giver, and not the 'gift' You're asking us to receive, so that we know that all things that come from You are good. Because You are good.