Rebuff Not The Lord’s Chastening

Rebuff Not The Lord’s Chastening

Rebuff Not The Lord’s Chastening:

Focus: Revelation 3:19 - KJV

19. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Proverbs 3:11-12

A good father chastens the son he loves, so does the Lord to the believer. A child that would stray and perish rebuffs the chastening of the father. No matter how knowledgeable a child may be, he does not yet possess the experience of the father. He becomes a son when, like his father, he has learnt from him and understands the curves in life to navigate them successfully. The same is true of the believer. He is a child for as long as he is yet to have deep understanding of the things of God which he only attains through the leading of the Holy Spirit. At every curve that he errs, he is chastened of the Holy Spirit and made to repeat. They that will become sons, hearken to the Spirit and learn from His chastening. Hence, it is said that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. The chastening is never a punishment, but a correction in love to forestall future calamity.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, while He was a man child, learnt obedience through “sufferings” (otherwise chastening). If He was not chastened by the earthly parents and the heavenly father, it may have been difficult for Him to fulfill purpose. The Bible described David as a man after God’s heart. At a curve in his life, he erred badly and God, because He loved him, did not spare David in his error. He chastised him somewhat sore that for the rest of his life he was scared to offend God. No wonder he could not by himself deal with his enemies but assigned them to Solomon to treat. If he had behaved like Eli, whose heart was revealed in his statement when Samuel told him what the Lord has said concerning his family, he may have lost it all eventually, too.

Whatever it is we assume we are going through that seem rather tough, God is asking us to judge ourselves and see where we had missed it and quickly repent to show that we are ready to heed His correction. A refusal to heed is tantamount to hardening the neck which would tend towards destruction (God forbid). Take that which you have been through as a sign of God’s love and chastening; take up the gauntlet and live right going forward so that when the script reoccurs, you will not fail God; and chastening in that regard becomes no longer necessary.

Please pray:

Father, I thank you for loving me and chastening me with your comforting rod and staff. Whatever I will do to get me offended in you for chastening me, please do not let it happen ever, in Jesus’ name. And, in accordance with your promise, do not allow me to be tested beyond what my faith can contain, in Jesus’ name. Every script that I have successfully scaled, do not let me ever return to it, O God, in Jesus’ name. Let me tower and soar above all such temptations, in Jesus’ name.

Please share with others. God bless you.