"Today's Devotion" For March 29, 2006
Read: Hebrews 12: 7-11; Proverbs 3:11-12
BLESSED BY OUR FATHER'S DISCIPLINE
"Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness." (Hebrews 12:10)
What do you think of when you hear the word "discipline?" For some, the term has negative connotations of "harsh" treatment by a parent or a teacher when they were young. For others it's a term which describes the manner in which they carry out a task, train their bodies and minds to perform, or what they do in order to correct misbehavior in a student, and inmate, or a child. For still others, "discipline" is what is instilled through military training so that the members of a unit act as one and survive the rigors of combat. In the end, it can reasonably be said that when we hear the word, "discipline," it raises a number of different emotions in all of us.
How about the word "punishment?" What comes to mind when you hear that word? For the most part, we're not apt to respond in a positive way to it. When one is punished it means that they've done something wrong, if only understood as being wrong by the one dispensing the punishment. While people for the most part accept the idea that "punishment" is the just desserts of one's disobedience to authority as defined by the law, both of God and of the state, there are many who consider themselves above any law and don't deserve to be punished for their wrongdoing. No matter how much one might accept the fact that they deserve to be punished, it can be safely said that no one looks forward to it, nor really wants to go through it.
Thus, "Discipline" and "punishment," when used in the same breath, generally carry no good connotations for us. We cringe at the mention of these words, hoping to avoid any application of them to our own lives, especially from the outside. In many ways such thinking isn't far off base, because so often the discipline and punishment that are administered by others, including those who love us, isn't always good, right, or deserved. There's no doubt, either, that we are often our own worst enemies and continue to punish ourselves long after it's helpful and salvific. Because, ultimately, from the point of view of our Father in heaven, all discipline and punishment are to be salvific - they are intended to be redemptive so that we might receive the full benefit of being His dearly beloved children - it's important that we understand them from His perspective.
By God's grace in Jesus Christ, He has called us to Himself and made us His very children. Scripture uses the term "sons" (Hebrews 12:7) in myriad places, in order to remind us that we have been restored to a full relationship with our heavenly Father in Jesus. In Christ, we receive the full rights as sons that He has. And, as His "sons," our Father in heaven, because of His great love for us, disciplines us for our good. We receive the just consequences (punishment) for our sins so that we might be not be lost to Him anymore. While our earthly fathers may fail us, the civil authorities unfairly accuse us, and the people around us treat us poorly, our Father in heaven never fails us and never falsely accuses us. He knows our hearts, He sees our sins, He understands our doubts and failures - and He continues to love us and discipline us so that we might know He loves us and wants us to be with Him forever.
God's grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness temper His discipline and punishment for Sin. Because Jesus paid the full price - the just punishment - for our sins, we no longer are afraid of receiving the full judgment and wrath of God toward Sin. Forgiven in Christ, we have been restored to our Father. Each day we live with confidence and hope that He holds us in the palm of His hand, cares for us as He gives us "our daily bread," and disciplines us for our good and the strengthening of our relationship with Him. His love underlies everything He does for us. It's our motivation for loving one another, forgiving one another, and eagerly sharing His love in Christ with others so they, too, might come to faith in Jesus, walk in newness of life, be called God's "sons," and be truly blessed by God's discipline.
Prayer: Father, I thank You with all my being for loving me so much that You discipline me and make certain I experience the just desserts for my disobedience so that I may not be lost to You. I also praise and thank You for tempering Your wrath toward Sin by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus so that in Him I'm not destroyed by my sins - my disobedience to You - but forgiven and restored to You. Help me to accept Your loving discipline and punishment as the acts of a loving Father rather than an angry Judge. Lead me to live in your grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness every day so that I might share these blessings in my relationships with others. Strengthen me by Your Word and Spirit, encourage me with Your baptismal grace, and empower me with Your love to be a living witness to others of what it means to be "a son" who is restored to You in Jesus; in whose precious name I pray. Amen.
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--Pastor Boeck
Copyright © 2006 Rev. Richard J. Boeck, Jr. All rights reserved.
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2 comments:
A father in the home is not necessary to ensure discipline. Don't get me wrong, families can be great and dads can be loving but the insistence on believing that children cannot be raised properly without them is nonsense whose time it is to end.
Women make babies so the belief that they cannot raise them without man is to say her system is incorrectly designed - broken - dysfunctional.
Think about it.
Dear Anonymous,
Let's first think about this for a minute. "Blessed By Our Father's Discpline," if you in fact read it, said nothing about families or being raised by a father. It spoke about the blessings received from our Heavenly Father's discipline - and we will note that that's how God frequently describes Himself - as our Father.(Think "Lord's Prayer).
At the same time, since you broach the subject, it's quite interesting that we so often want to discount fathers and their importance because human beings have developed their own sense of what's important. It seems especially sad to me that rather than children having the benefit of both fathers and mothers you would argue that fathers are unnecessary. It seems to me that such thinking violates some of the more basic laws of nature - not the least of which is that hermaphrodites are extremely rare -and it takes both a male and a female to procreate - even if some insist on petri dishes and artificial insemination.
I wonder what lies behind your vigorous denial of the need for fathers. When one parent is considered inconsequential or unnecessary there's a pretty good chance that civilization is on a slippery slope to destruction.
Father's may not be essential or important to you, but in God's Book they're both and He sets the example for human fathers to follow.
God bless your day and your service to others.
Pastor Boeck
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