Endurance and Discipline

I have no idea who is teaching tonight, but I assume it will be either Josh or Billy-Dave (who I have taken to calling William for reasons of my own insane amusement). I have no idea how much of Hebrews 12 they plan on covering, but I snuck a peek at the passage today to prepare my thinking for tonight's lesson and discussion.

Last week, Josh taught on the nature of sin, and ways to avoid it (the flee principle and scripture memorization). One of the things Josh said was that there comes a point in the Christian's walk where sin becomes flat-out willful. There comes a time in every believer’s life where we can no longer claim ignorance about certain sins, but rather, we flat out choose to disobey the Holy Spirit and God’s Word.

Verse 3 and 4 of this passage picks up on this concept a bit further. The writer reminds us that Jesus endured at the hands of sinners so that we can continue to run the race with endurance. We must not grow faint or weary! We must continually strive for personal holiness.

The text reads, "In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." (ESV) This verse has some interesting hidden implications which would take a whole lesson (or blog entry) to fully unravel, but the word that speaks the loudest to me is "yet".

Christ’s' definition of my endurance, and His vision for my commitment to holiness includes me be willing to shed blood for the sake of personal piety. The word "yet" assumes that this level of commitment is in my future. Frankly, I can’t wait – I’m tired of my willing attitude towards sin.

So, what is God’s plan for me to get there? Discipline.

This is one passage of the scripture that I like to skip over because I don’t like discipline. What’s worse, I don’t like surrendering myself to God’s discipline. Why not? Well… because it usually hurts. I can think of several times where I have been very clearly disciplined by the Lord, and they each involved instances where things that I loved (idolized in fact… that was part of the problem) were irreplaceably removed from my life.

Each time, my spiritual growth was hindered to the point of ineffectiveness until God chose to prove His love and discipline me. Each time the discipline hurt. However, during every one of these pivotal growing experiences in my spiritual walk, God’s comfort and His love consumed and comforted me.

During one particularly distressing period in my life, as the consequences for my sin were almost too great to bear, the Lord led me to Lamentations 3. This passage is required reading for anyone who is under the weight of their sin and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. In fact, stop reading this blog and read this passage right now (but don’t forget to come back when you’re done!).

My heart broke as I read Jeremiah’s description of being hunted and afflicted by God. Verse 21, however, broke upon me like sunrise. The remainder of the passage reminded me of God’s faithfulness and His love for me. When I read verse 31 – 33, I knew that God’s discipline was just, true, compassionate and loving.

For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

God requires and expects certain things from His children (just as I expect certain behavior from my kids) and one of those is endurance in the race and freedom from sin. God’s discipline is the method that He chooses to bring about our endurance. Praise God that He does not delight in our affliction, but rather lovingly reproves and corrects us as a father to his son.