Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


7.12.2004  

Grace...and Discipline

I was driving out toward The Summit today, trying to find a decent song to listen to on the radio. I ran across someone singing Amazing Grace..."How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved...We've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we've first begun...How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed..."



I find it very easy not to be amazed by grace...shame on me.



What could I possibly write today that would do justice to God's grace? Nothing, really. I think that's part of the whole point of His grace...nothing we could do would do it justice. If we could, we wouldn't need it, would we? The only thing we can do is to ask for still more, knowing that we don't deserve it, yet rejoicing in the fact that we'll still receive it.



I was reading in Hebrews 12 today about God's discipline. Check out verses 4 - 7:



(4) You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; (5) 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 reproved by Him; (6) For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives."

(7) It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?



It struck me as somewhat odd that verse seven says "it is for discipline that you endure," and not the other way around, which would make it "it is for endurance that you are disciplined." The goal of endurance is God's discipline. I'm still not sure what I make of it...I mean, the end of chapter 11 and the surrounding verses in chapter 12 seem to indicate that we are to embrace endurance, in order that we might be disciplined by the Father. So then, I must ask, what is the nature of this discipline? Is it the discipline that a wayward child receives, the reception of which he dreads because he knows he is in the wrong? Or is it the discipline of someone in say, a military boot camp, the type that is embraced by the soldier because he knows it is to his betterment? I think it's both. We are sometimes as children, not knowing that what the Father gives to us is best. At other times, we are as soldiers, knowing the painful discipline He inflicts is best, because we are not yet at a point where we are beyond such discipline. Verse 2 speaks of Christ enduring the cross "for the joy set before Him." Verse 11 says that those who have been trained by discipline "yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness." We endure to embrace the joyful fruit of discipline. Hehe...easier said than done :)

posted by Bolo | 10:08 PM
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