For Whom the Lord Loves

For Whom the Lord Loves

“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 punished by Him;”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12:4-5‬

Have you ever worked so hard, you’ve bled?  Run so far, you’ve thrown up?  Collapsed from weakness because you were so focused?

The intensity of working, exercising or thinking at a level so deeply rooted that it causes physical injury - isn’t even close to what we are going to talk about here. 

I can’t even imagine striving against sin to the point of bloodshed as it’s mention in Hebrews 12:4. And that’s only the beginning. 

We will never win against sin, so we must learn to accept the chastening (punishment) of God.  We would have to fight sin so severely that it would cause bloodshed - and we still wouldn’t win against it. 

So there must be a punishment for our sin. Initially, this punishment was death.  Until that is, Jesus Christ was sent to die for all of our sins.  He died for the sins of mankind so that we would not have to. Our deserved punishment was death for our sin. 

God is merciful, but He is also righteous. His mercy is why death is not the result of sin. His righteousness shows His love for us because He punishes us. He is graceful because we don’t deserve it. 

As believers, we are children of God. As children of God, there are consequences for our bad behavior.  

Sometimes these consequences are severe and sometimes we barely feel a thing.  Every trial in our life, as a child of God, is designed to strengthen us, teach us and mature us in our Christian life. 

When I was a child, I feared being punished by my Dad. I grew up with a twin brother, and we were heathens, and that’s an understatement.  If we were left unattended long enough, we literally, would burn something down. We deserved every bit of our Dads wrath.  But as children, we didn’t see it like that. We believed our Dad was a horrible man who punished us for no reason.   He had his faults, but we deserved our punishment. 

“Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12:9‬

Sound familiar?  Our faith in God relies on our obedience. When we are disobedient we believe nothing should happen to us. When something bad happens to us we question God, defiantly wondering what went wrong and “why me”?  Often times when I was younger, my Dad would confront me with what I did to deserve my punishment - and I would still say “what did I do?”  Much of this is very similar to the Christian today.  We live the way we want, professing to be children of God, yet we don’t believe we deserve the fire of our trials. 

Our Christian faith is simple, yet so hard. 

Love God with everything. Love your neighbor as yourself. Stay in Gods will. Repent from sin. Disciple. Go. Pray. Read Gods word. Gather. 

But we love ourselves too much.  We take all this too lightly.  And that’s why we are punished by the God who has given us so much. 

But it doesn’t end here and it’s not all bad news. 

Our discipline from God is only to draw us closer to Him by taking us further from the things He disciplines us for. Our sin. 

God is capable of loving us, after all, we are His creation. We are not random mutations from a piece of wood or a from a frog. We are unique and complex, exactly the way He designed us. And when we turn to Him, we accept His love and his discipline.  

So when we feel God chastening us, don’t forget to remember that He does it because He loves us, because we are His children.

“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 punished by Him; For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He punishes every son whom He accepts.””

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12:5-7

“For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12:10-11‬