1 Kings 11:9–12:33, Mark 7:14–8:10, Proverbs 3:6–3:12, Hebrews
12:6
When I turned my PC on this morning, both of my monitors
showed snow and crazy patterns. I figured the main one had failed, so unhooked
it and re-connected the secondary monitor as main. That worked, but this
episode was like a bolt out of the blue. It’s never happened in forty years of
using a computer.
Today’s Scriptures seemed a bit like a bolt from the blue
also. I’ve read them before, many times, but this time God gave me eyes to see
a little deeper into His power. If He wants to do something, He will. He can protect;
He can destroy. He can also chasten His people for sin or selfishness using severe
measures. Some of us might think that is not an expression of His love, but is
that true?
Consider Solomon. He started out well, but “his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had
appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he
should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this has
been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I
have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to
your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your
days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear
away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of
David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.’” (1
Kings 11:9–13)
God had given him two warnings before taking away
Solomon’s role and giving it to another. He was merciful only in that it
happened to his son and not to him personally. God wanted to spare Solomon from
even the horror of living out his life knowing that what he had done would ruin
the life of his child.
And that child’s life was ruined. Solomon’s son Rehoboam
lost most of the kingdom to a man called Jeroboam. He tried to get it back, but
one of God’s prophets said to him: “Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight
against your relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for
this thing is from me.” (1 Kings 12:21–24) Another horror: the son had
to accept his losses, and even accept that this was the will of God.
Solomon wrote this: “My son,
do not despise the Lord’s
discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord
reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”
(Proverbs 3:11–12) Was he referring to Rehoboam? Perhaps, but these verses certainly
speak to me. I have been tired of God’s reproof. I’ve also forgotten that He disciplines
me because He loves me. I find it far easier to suppose that He is inflicting
me in anger.
Today, the NT is not directly about God’s chastening, but
about the reason it is needed. Jesus knows that we tend to think that sin is
the result of a reaction to life’s circumstances. He uses food to illustrate
the principle: “. . . Do you not see that whatever
goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his
heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods
clean.) What comes at me from the world, or even from the devil, is not the
reason that I sin.
Jesus explains it this way: “What
comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of
man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting,
wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:18–23)
My problems with sin are not from the world and the devil,
but from that sinful nature — and I’m so prone to feed it with the junk the
world offers and the devil put on my plate. It that nature did not respond (and
it should not for it died with Christ), then I would not care about temptation
or respond to it.
Jesus also hints at the huge reason why discipline is so
unwelcome. I tend to want Him to remove the problem, whether it’s a buffet of
fattening food, or a disagreeable co-worker, or a tempting relationship, or an
aching foot. If those things were gone, then my sinful responses would not
happen. But Jesus says those responses are from the heart, not from what is outside
of me. I cannot put twenty-five miles between me and the nearest sin. I take it
with me wherever I go, and if God does not discipline it out of me, that sin
will ruin my life.
“For the Lord disciplines the
one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Hebrews 12:6)
I’ve pushed God away when I want to have my own way. He warns
me and pushes back. He isn’t being mean to me. He knows that if I do what sin
want to do, it will lead to discomfort or worse. His discipline is to save me
from myself — and He does it because He loves me.
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