Ladies ~ 31.) Building, improving, and maintaining relationships and effective communication. May God be trying to teach YOU something valuable through your deteriorating relationships? God is always doing what He knows is best for us. Sometimes the bad things that come into our lives are a direct result of chastening for our unrepentant sins. ‘Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby’ (Heb. 12:11). Notice that the reason for it is that it produces peaceable fruit. It is still for our own good. Chastening does get us to the place of repentance. But chastening for sins isn’t the only reason for hardships. God is in the business of conforming us to Christ’s image. The Hebrew word for chasten is ‘paideia’ meaning to train, educate, instruct, tutor. To chasten means to make somebody subdued: to make somebody less self-satisfied or self-assertive and more subdued. Chastening is not only for sinful reasons but also for spiritual growth. “For the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Pro. 3:12). “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure, God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Heb. 12:6-8). We don’t always know what God is doing or why. But that’s ok. We don’t need to know. Sometimes people feel that when they aren’t prospering that God isn’t being good to them. Perhaps you feel that you’re not being blessed or that He’s indifferent in certain particular situation in your life. Our Christian walk can feel miserably lonely at times and we feel that not only do we lack friends but that God isn’t even near … Job felt the same way. Don’t forget that chapter one of the book of Job says that he was an upright man. Job wasn’t being chastened for sin. But Job felt that God wasn’t always near in his time of severe trial. Listen to what he said: ‘Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hides himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: but he knows the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold’ (Job 23:8-10). Notice … Job didn’t know what was going on yet he said, ‘but He knows.’ God was purifying Job just like a jeweler purifies gold and precious metals. No…God is not indifferent. Are earthly parents only ‘good’ to their children when they are lavishing them with everything they want? Do parents cease to be loving and kind just because they make their children clean their rooms, eat their spinach, not ride their bike in the road, and won’t let them do everything that the Jones’s children do? Of course not. What happens to people when they get everything they want? They become spoiled right? Certainly you’ve seen the evidence in the grocery store when that type of parent says, ‘no’ to their child. Did you know there’s scripture that teaches this? Jer. 48:11 “Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” This nation, Moab, is a great example of what happens when from youth one gets what they want. Jeremiah uses the wine purification process to explain a great point. When they’d make wine they would pour it into one vessel and let it set for a period of time. Then they’d carefully pour off the top part and set aside the dregs, sediment, and lees that would settle on the bottom. The lees were so bitter that they used to make vinegar out of it. They had to repeat this same process over and over again with the same wine bottle until all of the sediment was gone. The lees were so sour that they would use it to make vinegar. After the process was complete you had pure wine. But if you let the wine stay on the shelf and not put it through the purifying process - it would settle but the lees would remain and eventually ruin the wine. Therefore the wine wouldn’t be pure or good. That’s how it is with children…Pro. 29:15 ‘The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.’ God isn’t a slack parent. He doesn’t leave His children to themselves. He purifies us. He is getting rid of sour attitudes, ‘lee like’ patterns and habits, sediment types of inclinations and thoughts. He is purifying us from things that would make us sour. Do you want your scent to remain in you? Do you want to be set on the shelf and left to sour? Do you really want to only be used as vinegar? Then be glad, satisfied, and thankful that the Master empties you from vessel to vessel. What have your relationships taught you about yourself? Trials have a way of revealing the real us. It is an act of kindness when God chastens us. He wants to educate and train us to be less self-satisfied and less self-assertive and make us more subdued, humble, and submissive. This makes us more like Jesus and when we are more like Him and less like our natural selves we become more useful to God. Just as God had a plan for Job, although his world kept crumbling down, He has a plan for you. Job couldn’t see or understand exactly what God was doing. We have the written account of his life, so we know his beginning and end but Job wasn’t privy to that. It is our calling to trust God’s work in our lives and yield to His Spirit. Homework ~ Look for areas and attitudes in your own life that you should be less self-satisfied and less self-assertive and more subdued, humble, and submissive to the Lord’s work and will for your life.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 11:00:39 +0000
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