12-29-20   THOUGHTS

Below is a discussion of the GREAT TEACHER’S mind to heal after CHASTENING has been the NEEDED TEACHING METHOD!   Rebellious Israel needed the whip in order to see it’s own sin.  We can see the love of a FATHER FOR HIS CHILDREN, EVEN AS THE DISCIPLINE IS APPLIED!  

Isa 30:18-26    Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him. 19  O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20  Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. 21  Your ears will hear a word behind you, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22  And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, "Be gone!" 23  Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture. 24  Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25  On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26  The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.
Set parallel to the above passage, the Hebrews passage below  is awesomely powerful.

Heb 12:3-11    For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4  You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5  and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; 6  FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." 7  It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8  But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9  Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10  For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11  All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

My Prayer:
May we rejoice in your discipline as much as we rejoice in your love, for they both bring us life. Help us accept what you give and consider our example in Christ.  We would share in your holiness, Oh God.  May the peaceful fruit of righteousness come from our submission to your teaching.     In the name of Jesus             Amen