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1. Understanding Divine Discipline
The passage in Hebrews 12:5-6 poses a critical question:
5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews 12:5-6
Notice the connection being made here. Discipline equals love, chastening equals acceptance. This flips our natural understanding on its head. We tend to think that if God loved us, He would remove all obstacles from our path.
We also assume that divine favor means constant comfort, but God operates on a different wavelength; He loves us too much to leave us as we are!
Think about it this way: if you saw a child running toward a busy street, would love mean smiling and waving, or would it mean grabbing that child firmly and pulling them back to safety? The child might cry, might not understand, but your intervention would be the ultimate act of love....
Similarly, God sometimes allows or orchestrates circumstances that feel restrictive or painful because He sees the danger we cannot see and the potential we have not yet realized.
The Greek word used here for "discipline" is paideia, which encompasses the entire process of child-rearing, training, and education. Furthermore, It is not merely punitive: it includes instruction, correction, and training in righteousness.
When God disciplines you, He is treating you as a beloved child who is worth the investment of time, attention, and intentional development. And He does it by love because He cares for us!
2. The Proof Of Sonship
Another point to look at is in Hebrews 12:7-8, which really drives home a startling point:
7. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Hebrews 12:7-8
This is counterintuitive to our modern sensibilities. We assume that believers understand the implication and meaning of those words but only to find out that an average christian believer of today is not interested in the things of deep and intimate things of God, let alone suffering and enduring difficulties!
We have been conditioned to believe that the absence of difficulty indicates blessing (actually that is what is being taught today in the church each sunday). But Scripture suggests something radically different and hard to swallow for many: the presence of discipline confirms your identity as a child of God.
Imagine two scenarios: in the first, a father ignores his child, letting them do whatever they want without guidance, correction, or boundaries. In the second, a father actively engages with his child, setting boundaries, correcting wrong behavior, and teaching important life lessons. Which child is truly loved?
Which child is being prepared for a successful future? The answer is obvious...
God does not discipline those who are not His—but those that are really His. This is one of the signs that God is with you, active in your life, compared to those that live their lives by believing in false assumptions in a dead relationship with the Lord, lord have mercy!
Why would He invest in refining someone who has rejected relationship with Him? But for those who belong to Him, He cares too deeply to allow us to remain in immaturity, sin patterns, or spiritual complacency. His discipline is the mark of His ownership and His commitment to our ultimate good.
Keep this in mind that this is a life long process of being born-again believer: God is perfecting us every single day that we keep on growing into more and more of the image and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; we are the one's that need consistent transformation and growth not God... So, at the end of the day your are either growing, which chastening is one of the requirements; or, you are just playing church, stagnant and spiritually dead, there is no other way way around this!
This should actually encourage us when we face trials. Rather than questioning whether God still loves us, we can take the difficulty as confirmation that we belong to Him. He has not given up on us.
He is actively working to shape us into people who can handle the inheritance He has planned for us. And let me be blunt, STOP ACTING LIKE A CHILD ITS TIME TO GROW UP!
3. The Purpose Behind The Pain
Why does God bother with this process? Is it necessary or is it just another way of being proved!?
Hebrews 12:10 provides the answer:
10. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Hebrews 12:10
There it is! The goal is nothing but holiness. Not happiness, not comfort, not ease—holiness, not proving or dead works....
God wants us to share in His very nature: He wants us to reflect His character, and that kind of transformation does not happen through a life of perpetual ease! Even the Lord Jesus was not excluded from this process—all of us, born-again christians, have to go through this process I am afraid!
Lets think about how athletes train: they do not become champions by avoiding discomfort, no...they push through pain, they embrace discipline, they submit to rigorous training programs because they have a goal in mind.
The temporary suffering produces lasting results. In fact that is the price that all athletes need to pay to get results or they are just deceiving themselves that they will get results by thinking, talking, or dreaming about it; the pain is the sign that results are taking effect. Similarly, God allows us to go through seasons of difficulty because He is training us for something greater than we can currently imagine.
Holiness means being set apart, being different from the world around us, reflecting the character of God Himself.
It means having our rough edges smoothed, our pride broken, our self-sufficiency challenged, and our dependence on God deepened! These transformations rarely happen in comfort, actually they never will. Comfort zone will not yield to us the result that God is aiming for, even also for the athletes we talked about: when we step out of comfort sone and go to the field that is where things begin to happen...they happen in the fire!
Think of gold that is refined, it must be subjected to intense heat, extremely hot furnace fire that melt elements!
The heat is not meant to destroy the gold but to purify it, burning away the impurities (the dross, scums and waste) until only the precious metal remains. God does the same with us. The trials, temptations, the challenges, the discipline—these are the fires that burn away what does not belong, leaving us more Christ-like, more holy, more useful in His kingdom, hallelujah!
4. The Temporary Nature Of Discipline
One of the most comforting aspects of divine discipline is found in the phrase "for a little while" in Hebrews 12:10. God's discipline is not eternal.
It is not vindictive. It is purposeful and time-limited....
When you are in the middle of a difficult season, it can feel endless. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and you wonder if things will ever change. But God operates with perfect timing.
He knows exactly how much pressure you can handle and exactly how long the process needs to last, not a moment longer than necessary, but not a moment shorter either. In other words God is your maker and the Great Porter, He knows what He is doing!
This should give us hope and peace of mind that whatever you are walking through right now, it will not last forever; and it is also for your benefit and good! The Lord is not interested in crushing you, He thoughts are not to destroy but to build you: you will think that God is against you or He has forgotten you, because the process is painful and hard; so your flesh is the one that is screaming that you curse God just like the wife of Job, and starting looking at God with bad eyes. The problem is not God it is the flesh that cannot help itself but loves comfort, harmony and only ggod things that it feeds on!. Moreover the Lord God our Heavenly Father is more interested in changing, shaping, molding and transforming you into being more like Him, glory be to God!
...Once the work is accomplished, once the lesson is learned, once the character is formed, the season will shift, and the results manifest themselves!
Paul understood this when he wrote about his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Though God did not remove it, Paul came to understand that God's grace was sufficient and that his weakness actually showcased God's power.
Sometimes the discipline remains for a season because we still have more to learn. Other times, it lifts suddenly when we finally grasp what God has been teaching us.
The other thing that I think that one needs to understand, which is also vital, is that the process can be prolonged even further or shortened according to how fast or how slow one learns his lesson. For an example, if the mighty Samson in the Book of Judges learned from his mistakes he would have never reached a point were he ended up losing his eyes, let alone his losing his mighty power.
...He was so stubborn and lived his life carelessly (while still believing in the Lord): and when reality came knocking, because of his poor choices, he realiZed that it was not God's fault by his.
Therefore, it is very important that we stop playing games because we might end up dying in the process when our Heavenly wants us to succeed and become better than we were; IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW YOU HANDLE THE SITUATION AND THE CHOICES THAT YOU END UP TAKING WHILE YOU ARE IN THE TRIAL PHASE!
5. The Harvest Of Righteousness
The Book of Hebrews 12:11 acknowledges the reality of the process:
11. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Hebrews 12:11
Take notice of the honesty here. The Holy Scripture does not sugarcoat the experience, no!
Discipline is painful. It is unpleasant. It is hard and sometimes unbearable!
But—and this is crucial—it produces something beautiful in those who submit to the process, only for those that pass the process!
The imagery of harvest is significant. Farmers understand that there is a season for planting, a season for watering, a season for waiting, and finally, a season for reaping. You cannot rush the process. You cannot skip steps.
But if you faithfully tend to what God has planted in your life through discipline, you will eventually see the fruit, glory be to God!
That fruit is described as "righteousness and peace." These are not superficial emotions: righteousness refers to right living, to alignment with God's will, to a life that reflects His character; peace, on the other hand, is that deep, abiding sense of wholeness and well-being that comes from being in right relationship with God and walking in His purposes.
These are the things we truly long for, even when we are distracted by desires for comfort and ease. Deep down, we want to be people of integrity. We want to experience genuine peace.
We want our lives to matter! God's discipline is the pathway to these very things.
6. How To Respond To Discipline
Knowing that God disciplines us for our good does not automatically make the process easier, but it does inform how we should respond.
<> Here Are Some Biblical Principles For Navigating Seasons Of Divine Discipline::
- Humble yourself before God. Pride will only prolong the process. When you sense God is working on an area of your life, do not resist. Do not make excuses. Acknowledge where you have fallen short and submit to His corrective work.
- Ask for wisdom. James 1:5 promises that if any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously. Sometimes we go through difficulty and miss the lesson entirely because we never stopped to ask God what He wants us to learn.
- Stay in community. Hebrews 12:12-13 encourages us to "strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees" and "make level paths for your feet." We were not meant to walk through hard seasons alone. Surround yourself with mature believers who can encourage you, pray for you, and help you see what God is doing.
- Do not grow bitter. Verse 15 warns against allowing "a bitter root" to grow up and cause trouble. Bitterness is the poison that turns discipline from productive to destructive. Guard your heart against resentment toward God or others during difficult seasons.
- Keep your eyes on Jesus. Hebrews 12:2 reminds us to fix "our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." He endured the cross "for the joy set before him." If Jesus could endure suffering with a vision of the outcome, so can we.
- Trust the Father's heart. Remember that discipline comes from love, not anger. God is not waiting to catch you doing wrong so He can punish you. He is a good Father who wants the absolute best for you, even when His methods feel harsh in the moment.
The Hard Side Of God Is Still Love
The hard side of God's love is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of His character in contemporary Christianity.
We have become so focused on grace—and grace is indeed central to the gospel—that we have forgotten that grace does not mean the absence of discipline. In fact, it is precisely because of grace that God disciplines us. He has saved us for a purpose, called us to holiness, and destined us for glory.
He loves us too much to let us settle for anything less than what He has designed us to become.
When you find yourself in a season that feels like discipline, do not despair. Do not assume God has abandoned you or that you have somehow fallen out of His favor.
Instead, recognize it for what it is: evidence that you belong to Him. You are His child, and He is committed to your transformation. The difficulty you face today is producing something eternal in you—a weight of glory that will far outweigh the momentary troubles.
Think about the disciples. They spent three years with Jesus, learning from Him, watching Him, following Him.
But it was not until after the crucifixion, after their hopes were shattered, after they faced their own failure and weakness, that they were truly ready for Pentecost. The breaking prepared them for the blessing. The discipline positioned them for the outpouring.
The same is true for you. What feels like breaking might actually be preparation. What looks like setback might actually be setup. What seems like punishment might actually be the profound love of a Father who sees not just who you are, but who you are becoming.
So the next time life gets hard, the next time you face consequences for your choices, the next time you find yourself in a wilderness season wondering where God is, remember Hebrews 12.
Remember that no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful... Remember also that later on, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it!
God is not mad at you. He is madly in love with you.
And because He loves you, He will not leave you as you are, but will continue the good work He started in you until the day of Christ Jesus, hallelujah! (Philippians 1:6).
That work sometimes involves chastisement, correction, and circumstances that push you beyond your comfort zone! But it always, always leads to one destination: holiness...
...And holiness—becoming like Jesus—is the greatest gift a loving Father could ever give His children!
Trust the process. Embrace the discipline. And watch as God transforms you into someone who not only receives His blessings but reflects His character to a watching world....
The hard side of His love is still love, and it is working all things together for your good and His glory until His Day of appearance; let us keep enduring, surely He will come to take us very soon, in Jesus Mighty name Amen!
Give you life to God today and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Pray this simple repentance prayer now and you shall be saved!
Do not wait for tomorrow do it right now while you still have the opportunity!
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