Because I had a severe illness as a child, doctors told my parents I would die before I reached sixteen. As a result, they seldom taught me life skills or corrected me when I made mistakes. They tried to give me whatever I wanted (two horses and a dog) and keep me from catching colds. Being protected and spoiled is one thing but no warnings or counsel about my behavior was more serious. A person without much instruction easily feels helpless in many situations.
God does it though. Although my Christian mother did not realize at the time, God made a promise to parents in Isaiah 54:1, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.” He began teaching me long before I knew that He had a plan for my life.
Raising children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” includes encouragement and positive aid, but also warnings and counsel. This means that God will ADMONISH those who are included in this promise. I remember things like strutting around the house in my first pair of high-heeled shoes and tripping over a straw on the floor. Using a mere straw and a thought, God reminded me that I had no reason to think more highly of myself than I ought.
Nevertheless, I seldom welcomed admonishment. The OT definition of sin is going our own way, doing our own thing and with my background, that attitude prevailed, usually without correction. I was shocked the day I told my mother how to make gravy and she rebuked me for my know-it-all attitude and for attacking her excellent skills as a cook.
The Bible does not use the English word ‘admonish’ very much. It is translated in other ways such as ‘warn’ or ‘counsel’ and other synonyms. Psalm 81:8–13 says this:
“Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!”
The passage goes on to describe the good things God would do for those who learned to listen. I feel it has taken me a long time to learn this because so much of my Christian life has involved “following my own counsels” and making many mistakes.
In the NT, Paul made it clear that admonishment in God’s kingdom is not about being harsh or cruel. God wants the best for us and when determined to do our own thing (sin), we need to know the result of such determination is disastrous. He said to the church in Ephesus:
“Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:31–32).
And he wrote the same thought to the Christians in Corinth: “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:14–15) His heart was the loving heart of a father for his children, just as the admonitions from God come from a loving heart.
For this reason, God says in 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 that I need to respect anyone who corrects me, not react with pride or any ‘how dare you’ response. Those in God’s family want what God wants — siblings who reflect the goodness and grace of God and if I am not doing that and someone corrects me, I am to remember the root reason for that:
“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. The glory of God is seen in how He instructs me about admonishment. The next verse categorizes those to be admonished: “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” He urges me to urge others to get busy but not forget that idleness can be due to hopelessness or some type of weakness that requires patient understanding. And I’m struck by the patience of God who knows the blank places and my struggles trying to figure out life. Every person has a background and a story, not excuses but God deals with each one in loving grace, including me.
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