C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world" (The Problem of Pain, p. 81). The Psalmist sincerely believed he profited from his afflictions. "It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes" (Psalm 119:71). Discipline is evidence that God accepts us as His treasured possessions.
God disciplines us so we will grow spiritually. The Lord God seeks to develop our intimate walk with Him, encourage us be to be more Christ-like, and to have victory over the power of sin in our daily life.
God allows trials and hardships to impact our lives to strengthen our faith in Him as expressly stated in Hebrews... "For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.' It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" (Hebrews 12:3-8 NASB). The point of these verses is that discipline is a mark of genuine sonship.
Here’s the hard pill to swallow... if you lack discipline, you are not a true child of God, but rather illegitimate. Legitimate or illegitimate is the way God looks at every human. Those who resisit God’s discipline are as illegitimate children who will have no inheritance. Inheritance is a big deal... its eternal life. To be an heir of the promise of eternal life, you best make sure that you are a genuine child of God through obedience and faith in Christ (Gal. 3:26). If you are His child, then trials are an evidence of His love, not of His neglect or opposition (12:6).
So the question we all must face from time to time... if we fall into sin, have we repented and are we willing to humbly accept rebuke and reproof... the discipline that God expects the church to administer?
A true child of God submits to Him in the trial and seeks to grow in holiness. An illegitimate child shrugs it off as bad luck or, worse, turns against God and grows bitter. Also, if a true child of God sins, he will be troubled about it. David was miserable after he sinned (see Psalms 38 & 51). An illegitimate child will gloat that he got away with it or shrug off his sin as no big deal. But a true child of God submits to the Father’s discipline, because such discipline is an essential part of our relationship with the Holy God.
The important thing with regard to God’s discipline is the spirit in which we respond. If we resist and harden our hearts, we will miss the purpose of the discipline. God’s intention is that we respectfully submit to it. (Hebrews 12:9) It’s possible to submit defiantly because you have a personal agenda or want to preserve relationships, however that’s not true submission. The psalmist reflected true submission when he proclaimed, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me” (Ps. 119:75).
Discipline requires humility on our part. We can resent God for His disciplining hand and be angry at the elders who must administer biblical discipline. We can accept it with self-pity, thinking we really don't deserve it. Why pick on me? Or... we can respond to it with a grateful submissive attitude in appreciation of God's love, grace and purpose that we become holy in our daily lives.
All discipline is designed to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Righteousness (12:11) is synonymous with Holiness (12:10). Both terms mean godliness or conformity to Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment of godliness (Rom. 8:29). Christ shows us what it means to be a righteous person in thought, word, and deed. True holiness or righteousness is not just external, but begins in our thoughts and heart. A truly righteous person has godly motives in everything contemplated, every choice and action undertaken. Such a person seeks to glorify God in everything.
Righteousness and peace always go together. You cannot have true righteousness without peace, or true peace without righteousness. God’s discipline produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness by teaching us the terrible consequences caused by sin.
When David sinned with Bathsheba and murdered her husband in an attempt to cover up their sin and get what he wanted, the Lord forgave the sin, but He also took the life of the son born to them. Were there consequences? Oh yes... the Lord raised up evil against David from within his own household (2 Sam. 12:11). His son Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar. Tamar’s brother, Absalom, murdered Amnon and later led a rebellion against David. For the rest of David’s life, his family was in turmoil. But he learned a valuable lesson by being the humble man God dearly loved... “a man after His own heart.” By letting us suffer such painful consequences for our sin, God teaches us that sin causes devastation and death, so that we will flee from it when we are tempted.
Our very human nature works against us! We’re all prone to trust in ourselves, rather than in the Lord. We’re all too focused on this life, in spite of the fact that life is a vapor (James 4:14). Sometimes we are unaware of our sins or shortcomings until God allows some trial to touch our lives that exposes them. The psalmist testified, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word” (Ps. 119:67). There is no indication that this man was openly rebellious before he was afflicted. Rather, the affliction made him aware of hidden sins that needed to be outed and dealt with.
That said, sometimes we are very well aware that our choices, decisions and subsequent actions and conduct are in direct opposition to God’s law. For example, our culture has a casual attitude towards sexual promiscuity, so we often ignore God's boundaries regarding intimacy. Sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is a sin, period. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin... that's walking in premeditated rebellion to God and His provision of saving grace through Jesus Christ. That’s a dangerous place to be.
One day we will stand before the Lord and give account of how we have lived our lives here on the earth. Like the apostle Paul, we don’t want to “run the race” and then be disqualified. It is worth the discipline and chastisement now so that we can declare: ". . . the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing" (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
We can trust what God has demonstrated with the ancients and recorded for our warning and edification through His Word the Bible. These examples of His dealings with the ancients are practical ways of looking at our own lives and measuring ourselves against His requirement that we be righteous and holy.
Consider these... "The Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one" (2 Thess. 2:3). Be nothing less than a person who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.
God the Father disciplines us for our good and His glory. He brings into our lives whatever is necessary to accomplish His eternal purpose which is Christ-likeness. Life’s painful experiences and accepting the discipline that can be learned cause us to grow in His likeness.
We should learn to view our lives as training for what is to come and trust our trainer. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to knock off the rough edges of our character, convict us of sin, bring us to repentance and submission to the Father's will. When we do not respond to His gentle urging, He will use whatever hardship necessary to accomplish holy objectives in our lives. He will put us through the fire to make us holy. His goal is our holiness not our happiness.
This is a hard principle to digest, but we need to see trials and suffering as evidence that God truly loves us. It is essential that we view our sufferings as the Lord's discipline rather than His displeasure or judgment. God allows trials and hardships to strengthen our faith in Him.
If we submit to Him, He will produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness in us. What else could you possibly want from this life???
