God Guides Through Discipline

God does not want us happy and comfortable. [I am a good person, therefore I deserve…]  God sustained 938,000 people in the desert for 40 years.  He can sustain you.  He has no trouble keeping you alive.  He wants you in service – He needs your spirit.   It is your spirit that He spends time disciplining.            

Do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction.  For whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights (Proverbs 3:11-12).

Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects.  Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty (Job 5:17).

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, because the Lord disciplines those He loves and punishes everyone He accepts as a son.”  Endure [choose to submit to] hardship as discipline.  God is treating you as sons.  For what son is not disciplined by his father? (Hebrews 12:5-7)

God heaps crosses on those He loves.  “Could He not make us good without making us so miserable?”  But He has not chosen to do so.  He is the Master.  We can only be silent and adore His infinite wisdom without understanding it. (Fenelon)

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline (Revelation 3:19).

The more we are afraid to bear crosses, the more we need them.  We should be fully aware of the magnitude of our disease by seeing the severity of the remedies that our Spiritual Physician sees good to apply!  Accept suffering as therapeutic to building faith and character.     (Fenelon)

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you (Deuteronomy 8:5).

We must carry our cross as a treasure.  It is through that cross that we are made worthy of God and conformed to the likeness of His Son. Crosses are part of our daily bread.  God regulates the measure of them according to the things we really lack and require.  He knows what we need, even if we are ignorant of it.  Let Him do as He wills and let us resign ourselves into His hands.    

My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work [in you], that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).

For the commandment is a lamp, and the whole teaching [of the law] is light, and reproofs of discipline are the way of life (Proverbs 6:23).