My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline
and do not resent His rebuke
because the Lord disciplines those He loves
as a father the son he delights in. Proverbs3:11-12
Unfortunately many people have a picture of God that makes Him seem to be a hard taskmaster with a tick-list of the rights and wrongs that we do. There are others, who in reaction to this, have a picture of God as kind of heavenly sugar-daddy who condones all our wrong-doings with a shrug saying "Oh well, to err is human."
Neither is accurate! The truth is that God takes our sin so seriously that He sent Jesus to die for us. When He looks at us from a legal perspective, God sees us as purified by Jesus' sacrifice. When we looks at us with a Parent's perspective, He sees the habits and behaviours in us that are not helpful and that hurt us and hurt others.
God will do what it takes to get the sin out of us and to bring us closer to Him. Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is God's way of bringing us back to Him and God will sometimes allow us to experience the consequences of our waywardness because it humbles us and brings us back home.
For example: God is sometimes silent when we pray because our hearts are full of darkness. The experience of His absence makes us hungry to be with Him. If we have been greedy and addicted to money, God will sometimes allow financial setbacks to get our focus back on the things that matter.
BUT... (and it is a big BUT...) not all hardship is discipline. Sometimes hardship is simply the result of living in a broken world and we should always check with a wise Christian friend if we think that God may be disciplining us. If it is discipline it is only because God loves us and is wanting to get through to us!
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
