THE PURPOSE OF DISCIPLINE
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 (Heb. 12: 7-10).
Ignoring God’s directions for life leads to all kinds of problems. He gave us instructions and prohibitions for a very good reason. He knows that life becomes a mess when we ignore the “no entry” signs along the path. One of the huge “no entry” signs is the one about the way we handle our sex drives. This one says “sex outside of marriage is dangerous” but, of course, because we humans think we know better than God, we ignored that one and set up our own rules – which in effect are no rules. Anything goes!
The result is a world of fatherless people, either because the biological father is absent and plays no part in the child’s life or because the father has opted out of his responsibility to father his children. Divorce has ripped families apart, leaving mothers to raise their children while fathers are out hunting for another mate, or at best, absentee fathers who see their children periodically and play no part in their upbringing.
Fatherless children grow up hurt and angry because they have no identity, and insecure because they have no one to affirm them and no one to set the boundaries within which they feel safe and free. There is no strong authority figure to bring order and discipline into their lives without which their sin nature plays havoc and leads to broken and destroyed people. Our prisons are full of criminals who grew up without the loving and guiding hand of a father.
It isn’t any wonder that so many of God’s children don’t understand what He is doing when hardships come. Discipline was not part of the equation. Punishment, yes, because many of the fathers were harsh and unpredictable, disciplining according to their moods and whims without purpose.
This writer perhaps experienced a father who loved him and disciplined him as a way of guiding his life towards a productive future. If so, it was easy for him to understand the purpose of hardship and suffering. God is the perfect Father. This writer knew that His people needed to be corralled in order to stay on the path. Without discipline, we lose our way amid the many temptations that appeal to our flesh and pull us away from God’s path through life.
How does God discipline us? He allows us to experience situations that bring the flaws in us to the surface. We bump up against people who irritate us, make us angry, or jealous, or who cause us offence in some way. We blame the other person when, in actual fact, our reaction comes from within us. Unless we own our own fault instead of blaming him or her, the exercise is wasted and God will have to keep up the heat until we learn the lesson.
He also allows us to get into sticky situations that require us to trust Him in the dark. Instead of trusting, however, we often try to fix things ourselves in a worldly way when He has said, “The battle is not yours but God’s. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” We pray desperately to get out of our problems instead of being still and trusting God in it. Our faith in Him cannot become stronger if the sun shines all the time. We need the storms to teach us how to hold on to Him in trouble.
“God uses hardships to discipline us,” said the writer. He has a goal in mind. He is building a family of sons and daughters who have progressed beyond the infancy, toddler and teenage stages. Each phase has it characteristics of immaturity. He has given us the model of His Son who lived as a perfect son instead of a spoilt brat or a stubborn rebel. His family destined for unity with the Father, sharing His holiness – His separation from and abhorrence for sin.
When we submit to His discipline instead of bucking and whining, something happens inside. A calm descends and a trust grows that God is, after all, in charge, good and moving us towards a desired end. If some earthly fathers did a good job, and they are fallible after all, submitting to and trusting in our heavenly Father will eventually bring us to maturity in this life and perfection in the next.
Is that a path worth following?
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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