God disciplines His Own- Revelation 3:19
Some Christians say that God does not discipline believers. And I get where they are coming from.
They are wanting people to come freely to Jesus without fear. So they present God as only being nice. Arms out. Hugs. Everything is happy.
So lets say that someone buys this idea that God does not discipline his children.
Now, something bad happens. Something so bad that the believer is miserable for a long, long time.
Now what do we have?
The answer from the people who say God does not discipline his Children is that God didn’t do that to the person; Satan did it.
Now, we have a bigger problem I think.
Now we have an almighty God that supposedly loves me, but he can’t keep something miserable from happening to me.
How about this: God loves me. And he disciplines me. He disciplines me because He loves me. He saved me, sure. And that is marvelous. But now that I am His, He molds me. He works on me. He is the finest craftsman in the universe, and I am His workmanship. He is the potter; I am the clay.
And He uses pain (and joy) in making me what He wants.
If we look at the story of Job, you can say that Satan did all that horrible stuff to Job. And you would be right. But God is using Satan to make Job a better man.
And remember Job was already this good man. Who knew that God could do more with him? God knew. And God knew how to do it. And Job ends up with a resilience that is one of a kind.
He lost everything. All of his possessions and all of his children. Then, he lost his health. His skin was so bad, the best thing he could do is scrape his condition with shards of pottery.
Of course, Job wasn’t happy about it.
But he didn’t stop believing in God; He kept loving God.
Sure, Satan did it, but God was in charge of Satan!
Unlike Job, a lot of us set ourselves up for misery. Wait, how is that?
Though we are God’s children, we slide into idolatry. It’s not that we wake up one day and say, “I’m done worshiping God; I’m going to worship idols now.” No, we do it little by little. Maybe the biggest way is that we don’t take every thought captive.
Why do we let our thoughts think ungodly things? It's because we think our thoughts are hidden.
But they aren’t. They are left raw and exposed, for we are always naked before the Lord.
And we think these thoughts are harmless. Our lusts, our greed, our jealousies.
But these little thoughts grow like weeds. Because we let them. If we let one alone, it gets bigger and it multiplies and we get used to it. What’s a few weeds in the garden of my mind, right?
We even convince ourselves that we deserve those lusts, that payday, that pile of whatever it is we think we want.
And God loves us. He knows this is horrible for us. It’s like the child who wants all the candy he can eat and all the toys on the self. God knows better, so He responds.
He disciplines. He moves us in the correct direction. And we respond to that.
See, at that point, we have the opportunity to either repent or double down on our desires.
At our worst, we even look for other idol worshipers who tell us that we are thinking good thoughts. They cosign our baloney. We find them on devices. We find them in public. We even find them in some churches.
The scripture is replete with warnings to us about wolves in sheep’s clothing. Leaders who tell us what we want to hear so they can bleed us down to the last drop.
On the other hand, let’s be clear about this. No matter how far a believer has strayed down that slippery slope, Jesus is waiting to take us in. Arms wide. Over and over again.
It’s not that he just loves to discipline.
No, He’s looking for love from us! He made us to be in a relationship with Him. That's what happened when we became believers. When we try to fake it. He helps us get real with with him.
He disciplines. He loves. He disciplines because He loves.
And we love Him because He first loved us.
Lord, give me the grace to know your conviction. When, I have strayed, may I repent and turn back to you, fully trusting in your love and forgiveness. May I then delight in you. I want to be in a loving, honest relationship with you everyday. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
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