All tagged correction
Today's topic regarding discipline within the Church is one of those very difficult and touchy subjects. The end result could be the separation of someone from a church (or as the Church knows it... Excommunication), or the removal of a local church from the greater Church. As I read my morning devotional, Pastor E. M. Bounds spoke of discipline within our churches like this:
When we, as Christians, correct those within our midst we must be very careful. We should do so with humility, but we should also take care that we don't get dirty. Our scripture reference says this in a slightly different way when it says "lest you too be tempted" but the idea is the same. When we come into close contact with sin we are in danger of becoming tempted, and sinning ourselves.
Have we ever stopped to consider that not every misfortune that we face in life is a Job moment, and put upon us by Satan? Some are just natural occurrences of living out our lives in this world while we exercise the lessons of faith that we have learned while walking through it with the Lord... And then, there are those which are the correction of our Father as he chastises us.
Have we been rebuked in our lives for seeing life only as the world sees it? Peter received such chastisement right before Jesus told His followers to pick up their crosses and follow Him. So often we face verbal correction in our walk, or feel the hand of God upon us as He turns us to the left or right to guide us back onto the path of righteousness. Like Peter, We hear Jesus telling us that we are succumbing to the influences of Satan, and to pick up our cross and follow Him instead. The question becomes this… do we stumble over our earthly pride and turn away when corrected; do we get our feelings hurt and abandon our faith? Or, do we pick up our cross and follow Jesus as He bids us to do?
Have we ever been through times when our sins became so intense that we cried out in pain from within the midst of them, and sobbed as we asked for God’s forgiveness and mercy? Perhaps an addiction was destroying our body, or ruining our marriage; maybe we stole or lied about something, and when found out, our transgressions brought great shame on us, or we lost our job as a result of them. The consequences of sin can be severe as God disciplines us for them. Are any of us being disciplined now? If we are, take heart for God loves you… and will bless you in your correction.