God's Discipline
By Greg Christman

There are many times in our lives that we feel we are not in God’s good graces. Things around us seem to be falling apart. We feel distant from God. Work is frustrating. Life is just a challenge. In these times, we need to seek God the most. What we may find is that God is very close by, and that He is helping us work on our character. God uses many situations and circumstances to help us come closer to Him.

Have you ever prayed, “God, I am struggling with my son (family, friend, wife, etc…), please grant me wisdom to deal with this situation and help me to help them.” And then sometime soon after that, you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a battle. You see some trouble they are in, or are causing… and you turn back to God and ask “WHY ME, God? Why is this happening to me?” And God whispers to us, “This has been going on for a long time, I have revealed it to you so you can deal with it.”

We often ask for God’s help, and then we get angry when He shows up and reveals an answer that we were not looking for. We wanted His help to just bring peace and show us that we are loved, and that this person we were praying for loves us. What we really wanted is for God to just quietly show up, “fix” the problem, and let us go about our business.

God is showing us is we are in a battlefield. God is right there beside us, and He gives us all we need to succeed in battle; see Ephesians 6:10-21, The Armor of God. But we fail put the armor on every day. We fail to prepare for battle every day. God gives us many opportunities to practice, and to build our strength in this area, but we often overlook them and continue on our way in this world without even acknowledging Him.

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:12-13). God calls us to an active discipline of “working out” our salvation, to become more like Christ. To do this we need the power of the Spirit in us, the fellowship of other faithful Christians, obedience to God’s Word (not just knowledge of, but complete obedience to it) and sacrificial service. God calls us to a life of service, not to earn our salvation, but out of love for him, for giving us salvation, we should love to serve Him, by serving those around is.

God’s discipline is a daily practice, of seeking Him, reading His Word, and by living his Word. It is like when I was younger, and I was in Tae-Kwon-Do. My teacher would run me ragged, making me do push-ups, sit-ups, running, and making me sweat, day in and day out. Why? Because he knew that when competition day came, if my body was not disciplined for strength and endurance, I would not be successful at the end of the day. It is the same with our God. He loves us and He knows that we need to be disciplined for strength and endurance, and that we need to “work out” in His Word, so that when we are in battle, we are ready to fight, for Him, and for His people. If we don’t live through Him, with Him and in Him every day, we cannot be successful in doing His will.

Fellow Christians, we are called to battle. Are you ready? Do you have a battle plan? Do you have workout partners? Do you allow God’s discipline in your life? God wants us to win, through HIM. Pick up your armor, put it on, and let’s FIGHT!

Your comments are welcome, please email me at gchristman@new.rr.com. To view resources and links concerning this article, please visit http://dhw.promarkllc.com.