My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him —Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
“. . . nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
When searching for the right song for today, I found two … and couldn’t decide. DJR
Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
Thank you for your love & grace this day. We can tend to feel guilty and feel like you are using guilt to get conformity when we read about not grieving the Spirit … have we done that? etc. Devotions like this one can exacerbate that in those of us who have a predisposition to judge ourselves harshly.
But we are reminded that your grace is sufficient and everlasting and stretches from the east to the west. It is becoming clear that our requirement is merely to show up. To show up surrendered … pre surrendered. Like the man who responded, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief”
So help us to show up with you and receive whatever you have for us this day.
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