GODS GRACE....true or slippery For years there has been prominent in the church an unbalanced overemphasis on the love of God. There has been a universal tendency to teach that Christ is so compassionate, so kind that He does not discipline us for wrongdoing. There is the false impression that any old thing can go on, that God will simply forgive and forget all about it. This simply is not so. There is a price to pay for our perverseness. There is a discipline we deserve for wrongdoing. There is the Master’s demand that we be faithful in service, serious in our responsibilities to Him and to others. We distort the true character of Christ if we assert that He will merely wink at wrong. He is grieved when we deliberately disobey His commands and selfishly ignore His wishes. We shrink back from the discipline of God. We find it grievous. We would rather it was set aside. It cannot be. It is for our best. It is for His benefit. It is for the eventual blessing of others whose lives we touch. As the Spirit of God makes abundantly clear in Hebrews 12:6-11, “For whom the Lord loves He disciplines…Now no chastening (discipline) for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are trained in this way.” And when it is all over, the bonds of affection between Christ and ourselves are even stronger than before. For instinctively, deep within our own spirits we know we deserve discipline. We know the Master would not be true to Himself or to us if He simply let our misconduct slide into sinister selfishness. He disciplines because He cares, because He loves, because He heals. With this reassurance comes renewed joy. There is total restoration. There is sheer delight in once again doing His bidding. (excerpt from Lessons from a Sheep Dog Phillip Keller)
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 19:31:08 +0000
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