As you witness over 20,000 contestants from around the world participate in a variety of track and field events, you realize that a very necessary part of their lives has to be discipline. They could not have made it this far without it.
The problem with discipline for many of us is...it hurts.
Discipline involves pain, sacrifice, sufferering, pressure, and rejection.
These are things that we don't often associate with God, but as the ultimate parent He knows they are invaluable to training a peak performer. God's Word doesn't promise a life without pain until we reach eternity.To grow and move forward, we have to stop trying to avoid pain.
Hebrews 12, teaches us about God's discipline. It says it shouldn't be confused with punishment, but must be considered "normal" in the life of a believer.
Heb. 12: 4-11
Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves.
Would you prefer an irresponsible God?
We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live?
While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best.
At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain.
Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.
The source of God's discipline is His love. He cares for us, so He allows whatever is needed to to mature us into living as the priests we were created to be, here and forevermore. The goal of His training process is spiritual maturity.
Many seek to be spiritually mature, but fail to understand the pain that is needed for that to happen.
In nature, maturity takes irritation, pressure, crushing, fighting, and heat. It's similar in the spirit realm.
God has given us the desire to take off this flesh, the old man, and die to self in order to live in Him. To do that, we must take up our cross daily. Remembering the cross, it was a place of shame and suffering.
Romans 8:16-18 says,
For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.
Advancing to God's glory requires training and discipline. Both of these may feel like punishment as we go through. We must accept each, and focus on the finish line, the loving arms of Christ our Bridegroom, in order to endure.
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