THE LOVE OF DISCIPLINE
Hebrews 12:5-6 (NIV 1984) 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.
All discipline hurts! No person enjoys it, and many parents won’t do it, at great cost to their children. We tend to see discipline in a negative light; and when we are the objects of that discipline, we initially feel unloved and rejected, but from God’s perspective, the opposite is true. God disciplines His people (Dt 8:5; Prov 3:12; 1 Cor 11:32; Heb 12:5-6; Rev 3:19) because He loves them and embraces them; but it still hurts. He may even injure us, ask Jacob (Gen 32:25), disabling us in one area in order to enable us in another, causing us to be less efficient in certain things in order to make us more efficient in others. He does this in order to refine our character, making us more holy, meek, and sensitive to His Spirit. God will even allow something painful in our lives, if its presence can humble us; remember Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7). What exactly was that anyway? No one knows, but what we do know is that it bothered him. Thorns hurt, and, if not removed, their pain is constant and their presence debilitating.
When the Lord disciplines, He is not condemning, though we may take it that way, rather He works from a place of absolute love, a love we do not fully understand; however, His discipline can in no way be compared to accusation. Accusation is the mode of operation displayed by our spiritual enemy (Zech 3:1; Rev 12:10), and if we’re not careful, we will think that when God disciplines us He is accusing and condemning us. In our minds we see a mostly angry, disappointed, and disgusted boss or parent, who harshly rejects us. Our own accusations and condemnation toward others reinforce this (Lk 6:37-38). When we are overly harsh, critical, and accusative toward others, it surprisingly turns itself back on us, and when that happens, we can think it is the voice of God, because we tend to superimpose our motives onto Him. It takes a supernatural revelation for us to see the intense love and gentle heart of the Lord in our discipline, and that love is relentless and will not stop until He accomplishes all He is desiring to accomplish. Oh, what great love it is that refuses to allow us to continue in the self-destructive patterns of behavior that have caused us, and those around us, so much pain.
