Prayer: Father, Job defines to me Your personal nature and how involved You are with me. Thank You for being an intimate, personal God. Amen.
Reading: Job 5 key: vs. 17-18
17 Behold, happy is the one whom God corrects,
so do not despise the discipline of Shaddai.
18 For He inflicts pain, but He also binds up;
He injures, yet His hands also heal.
Attention: Most of us do not think of correction and discipline as a loving act by anyone, much less God. Job responds to his friends accurately, “God corrects” and He also lovingly “binds up” and “heals.” Both healing and love, come from a correcting Sovereign.
If we do not believe Job, will we listen to other writers of scripture? The writer of Psalms 94:12 says, “Blessed is the one You discipline, Adonai, and teach him from Your Torah.” Solomon writes, “My son, never despise Adonai’s discipline or dread His correction. For Adonai loves those He reproves, even as a father, the son in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:11-12). The writer of Hebrews echos Solomon’s words (12:5b-6) and then a following verse confirms this, “But if you are without discipline—something all have come to share—then you are illegitimate and not sons.”
None of us like discipline but the writer of Hebrews has just shared a key element of discipline with us. God disciplines those He loves. If you are without God’s discipline, you are not His. This is a tough statement to accept. I encourage you to examine yourself. Have you or is God disciplining you?
Action: I will not despise the discipline of Shaddai, the All Sufficient One.
Yield: I am yielded to as one of His sons or daughters when I receive His discipline.
Engage: Discipline assures me that I am His.
Relationship: He is my heavenly Father; I am His son or daughter.
Prayer: Father, thank You for being an All-Sufficient Father to me. Thank you for caring so much that You discipline me. Amen.
Memory Verse: Proverbs 3:11-12
11 My son, never despise Adonai’s discipline
or dread His correction.
12 For Adonai loves those He reproves,
even as a father, the son in whom he delights.
Music Video: The Steadfast Love of the Lord, Worship Song
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”