What do you think about when you think about discipline? Does it cause joy, anxiety, or dread? This week in our series, The Local Church: God's design for His People, we heard about the God who disciplines. Discipline in the moment feels painful, but the result is holiness for those trained by it.

We saw in Hebrews that God disciplines his children out of love for a purpose. God disciplines out of love for holiness, restoration and healing. God disciplines His children not out of frustration but out of the overflow of his loving heart; He uses sin, brokenness, and trials to shape us. God knows that holiness is the pathway to intimacy with Him. He disciplines us into holiness so that we might ultimately know him more deeply.

God also disciplines us for restoration and healing. Through God's discipline, we receive his healing and a restored relationship with him.

God is the doctor. We are sin sick and easily grow weary in our trials. He is our remedy.

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed." - Hebrews 12:11-13

Receive the medicine of His loving discipline.

Resources:

• Message - The Painful Discipline of our Heavenly Father - John Piper

• Article - You Asked: How do We Know God is Disciplining You? - Don Carson

• Blog - Do Not Regard God’s Discipline Lightly - Kristen Wetherell

Reflection Questions:

• How do you experience God’s discipline ?

• Are you allowing God’s discipline to shape you, restore you, and heal you?