Better for It.
Today’s Bible Reading: JOB 5:1-7:21
Job 5:17-18
Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal.
Discipline for the most part is not pleasant. It hurts. It is painful. But the pain is profitable. The chastisement of the Lord brings about change in our lives. It removes what is harmful and replaces it with what is Holy. The Lord brings it upon us then He binds up the wounds that were brought by it. In this text we see God’s reaction to our rebellion and our response to His reproof.
God treats our transgressions with severity. He is not content for His children to continue in their corruption. His love for them will not allow them to languish in their sin. So, He disciplines His disciples. He brings pain upon them to push away their perversions. He wounds them to remove their waywardness.
But God doesn’t just cut us without curing us. He doesn’t cut us without closing us up. God never makes a wound so severe that He can’t sew it up. Like a surgeon who cuts us that he might cure us, so God in his mercy lays us open to expose and remove our corruption. He then pours His healing ointment of pardoning grace upon the wound that he had made to bind us up again. Thus, the incision that God makes is for our improvement. It causes the removal of our rebellion and replaces it with His righteous. He bruises, but He binds up.
The scars of our chastisement are signs of our sanctification. They are marks of His mercy. Discipline seems a bitter pill to swallow, but without it our prognosis would be dismal. Discipline makes better disciples. We are broken by it, but we are better for it. It drops us to our knees. It directs us to His word. It draws us into His presence. It changes us. In this alone we should rejoice rather than reject His reproof.
Therefore, we should not despise God’s discipline but rather delight in it because it expresses His longing for us to flourish in our faith. He allows the chastening pain to perfect us by purging from us all that would hinder us from living faithful and fruitful lives. So do not abhor His actions of aligning your ways to His will. We must accept them as His actions of affection toward us (Hebrews 11:6). He wounds, but His hands make whole. So, allow His wounds that you might be made whole.
Today if you encounter the discipline of the Lord embrace it as His expression of love toward you. Let Him remove those things that hinder your holiness and replace them with the things that lead to righteousness. Don’t despise what makes you a dynamic disciple.
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