Roots of Bitterness - 5

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us..., fixing our eyes on Jesus, .... For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. (Hebrews 12:1-4)

With so much attention drawn to Jesus and His life in this passage it seems unavoidable that this reference to resistance to the point of shedding blood has some connection with the torture and death of Jesus. But I am still trying to comprehend just how I am to correctly correlate that to my own life.

Is Paul really saying that it is our destiny as a Christian to repeat the shedding of blood like Jesus endured? And just what is meant by the word “sin” that is he talking about here that we are supposed to be resisting – if the assumption is drawn from these words that that is what we are supposed to be doing at all? How does this relate to the words of Jesus, But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:39-42) How much difference is there between resisting an evil person and resisting sin? External vs. internal?

It looks to me like there is a lot of attention here directing us as to where to focus our attention. Even though we are living in the context of this great cloud of witnesses we are not told to focus on them, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus. Then almost immediately again we are told to consider Him... so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. That seems to be the main thrust of the background for this verse about resisting and shedding blood. It seems to me that understanding our focus properly will shed light on the real intent of these words. They must be viewed in context of the intent of the verses before and after.

I have to be careful to not get carried away in trying to figure this out with my head more than my heart. It is so easy to get on a roll here and forget that my heart is not keeping up and may be starting to see something very different than the logical assumptions that naturally result from intellectual analysis. I need to stop and allow my spirit to listen both to my heart and for promptings that may be coming from God's Spirit. I must avoid the tyranny of the urgent. I am on no schedule to cover so much in a certain amount of time. I am here to hear, to interact with God's Spirit and to grow in knowledge of Him and His ways. I must always keep that in priority above my pursuit of “answers”.

I sense that maybe the application of this verse may very well be duel and may potentially seem to be contradictory. I believe that we often get our thinking into a small box unnecessarily sometimes by insisting on coming up with only one interpretation for a prophecy or text when God's word is much more versatile than we care to allow.

Following my original hunch that this may be highlighting a contrast between the legalism that he has been addressing throughout the book up to this point and a family-style connection within the body of Christ that he has been introducing, I think this is reinforced by the next verse drawing attention to our true position from God's viewpoint. We are to see ourselves as sons and daughters of God, not independent humans trying to impress or appease a King from a slavish mentality. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you. (Hebrews 12:5 NIV)

These key words remind me to focus very much on Jesus and remember that I am a son of God in favor with Him. This is the paradigm that I need to properly relate to experiences that seem painful or unexplainable. That is one of the messages that I am getting in the following verses.

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children-- "My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts." Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5-11 NRSV)

As I read this passage in various versions I cannot avoid my discomfort with the conflict between what I have been learning about the character of God over the past few years and this picture of a God who punishes and chastises. I know there are many who would be quick to point out that everything I have been learning is bogus because this text discounts it all. But I simply do not buy that line, not because I want to twist this passage to fit my preconceived ideas but because I believe that I must better understand the bigger picture and strive to understand how certain passages like this that on the surface seem contradictory may actually enhance the beauty and truth about God when properly explained.

I realize that most of my discomfort with this passage is due to the distorted experiences of discipline and punishment embedded in my mind, like many others, through the abuses of these concepts while I was growing up. When parents and authority figures justify their infliction of pain on a child, especially when done with any degree of anger, excusing their abuse as discipline or punishment when in fact it is really their own baggage and unresolved pain being passed on to another generation, it becomes very hard if not impossible for that child to have a proper concept of what constitutes legitimate discipline.

These children grow up believing that God, like their earthly abusers, has a lot of unresolved anger that He occasionally vents upon His children just like the angry parent that unknowingly misrepresented God earlier in their life. That person forms a very fear-bonded concept of God in their heart and belief system that poisons their experience and prevents them from being able to really believe the rumors about God's love for them that may come around. What they have experienced in abusive situations far outweighs any theological riff-raff about a loving God who is humble and gentle and loving. In their heart they are always waiting for that God to unexpectedly lash out at them if He happens to get offended by some mistake or misstep by His children.

Those are the feelings that stir around inside of me uncomfortably when I read this passage and at that point I have to listen more to my left brain logic that has assembled some counteractive knowledge over the recent years to sustain a better view of God than parts of my heart feel like believing. I do want to know what God has to say to me in this passage, but I also want to be careful not to allow a myriad of false assumptions to influence the real meaning of this text. What may seem to be obvious due to my own background may in fact be quite misleading due to false pictures of God from my own early experiences and those around me. I must be careful to bring to bear on every passage the overarching truths about God that are needed as filters to interpret other areas that seem to present an opposite view.

I have been led for a number of years now by the Spirit of God to begin to see Him as being a consistent God of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. That is not to say He excuses or overlooks sin as some would assume or accuse me of believing whenever this assertion is put forward. But I have come to believe that God's mercy is so strong and His love is so passionate that if we were exposed to its full intensity with the lies we presently still have about Him in our hearts that it would destroy us. In light of this revelation about the danger of exposure to the intensity of God, I believe that I might be able to better understand these references to discipline and chastening. I need to consider these words in the context of the truth about God as He has already been showing me over the past few years, not from a context of twisted, human uses of these terms.

My whole reason for immersing myself in this chapter is to uncover the truth about bitterness and the roots that create it. This section about discipline and punishment is a major source of bitterness that I suspect is still affecting my life in ways I am not even aware of. Therefore it is important for me to hear clearly whatever it is that God wants to reveal to my mind and heart about this issue. I want Him to uproot all the roots, even the little tendrils connected to any of those roots, to that they will never spring up again and spread their deadly poison.

I want to have a clearer picture of God as a Father whom I can trust implicitly without fear. That is going to have to be a major shift of perception of fatherhood for my heart that has known mostly fear, apprehension and resentment toward one labeled as father. Yes, my father did the best he knew how and I want to be quick to honor and admire him for that. I too, followed in the same path of mistaken ideas about fatherhood and produced similar results in my own children. But somewhere this pattern of messed up lives and screwed up perceptions has to come to an end and the real truth, the glory of the real Father must come into view and transform and heal all of us and our brokenness.

God, show me the truths that I need to see in this passage. Bring me the healing truth for my heart that You want me to see here. Address my fears and false ideas about discipline and punishment and chastening. I don't want to just paste together a plausible-sounding explanation of these verses, I want to know the real truth about You and discover a much more powerful, transcendent and uplifting picture of what a real Father is from this passage. I want to see things as I have never seen them before. I want to see the consistency of Your character and Your word as I meditate on this chapter. Reveal the roots that continue to poison my life and relationships and deal with them in healing and restoration to wholeness. I suspect that it might involve some discipline and chastening to the extent that I mistakenly resist Your grace. But continue the work You started in me and made more plain 37 years ago this morning. I commit myself to rest in the peace of being Your son and all that that implies for our relationship.

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