Daily Lesson for February 2, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 12 verses 3-6 and 9-11:

3 Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children—

‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

   or lose heart when you are punished by him; 

6 for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,

   and chastises every child whom he accepts.’ 

9Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.11Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

“Discipline” is the same word from which we get the word “disciple”. Through the act of discipline disciples are made. No disciples are made without discipline. 

And with discipline there is pain. In fact, the word “discipline” comes from the Middle English meaning “mortification by self-scourging”.  They took their self-discipline seriously in the Middle Ages! Extreme or not, what they knew was that usually real, lasting change in a life does not come without some kind of pain.

The writer of Hebrews says God continues to discipline us for our own good. I take this to mean God has so set up the world that it has a way of bending us into conformity with God’s will. “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” the Proverb says. The rod is life. It’s “the goads” St. Paul was kicking against while he was still persecuting the Church. The rod is what Dr. Phil means when he says, “How’s that working out for you?”

Life has a way of showing us our anger, jealousy, and sloth. At first these are usually seen a bad things happening to us for no reason or because of somebody else’s maliciousness or ineptitude. But a disciplined mind can see these things happening really in the end for our own good.