Discipline for Glory

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather 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, so that we may share His holiness. (Hebrews 12:9-10)

I am still on my quest to uncover and expose the roots of bitterness within me that are preventing me from enjoying the freedom and joy that God intends and desires for me to live in. I am carefully studying the passage in Hebrews surrounding the key verse about roots of bitterness to find all the clues I can and to flush out for my own recognition anything that resonates in my heart with the descriptions I find here in the Word. I have been experiencing progress in this journey though much of it is not easily definable in words.

One of the areas that has very strong resonance to what I find in this chapter is the discussion about discipline. I have been unpacking this for some time and find that there is always more whenever I come back to look at it again. It is an area of my life in which there is a great deal of misperception, pain and apprehension in my heart. I have reason to believe that it may also be one of the greatest contributors to the mass of lies about God that was early instilled into my thinking, launching me into many years of fear, legalism and bitterness toward not only those who mistakenly trained me in this area but toward God on whom I projected all of my false conclusions.

So I feel that it is very helpful for me to go back to this base of soreness and open it up again to receive light, truth and healing. By doing so I believe that the triggers that currently cause such intense inner reactions that blind me from relating properly to a wholesome relationship with God whenever this subject is raised can be neutralized. The verses quoted above hold a great deal of the truth and correction needed for my false perceptions about valid discipline and I want to explore them deeper.

As I have processed previously, the word discipline is strongly related to the word disciple and is better understood in the context of how Jesus related to His disciples. But looking at that example does not resonate much with what I experienced growing up. Most of the training that I received was closer to the counterfeit of good discipline and thus seemed to have more negative than positive effects on my life that were then passed on to another generation. But God is giving grace to stop this cycle and bring truth and healing into the lives and hearts of everyone affected who are willing to receive it.

I looked up some of the words in the original language this morning from these verses and found some interesting insights. I have been writing for some time about the contrasts presented here between the typical discipline received from the father of our flesh and the healthy, life-producing discipline we can accept from the perfect Father of our spirit. Many of the problems we experience in our flesh (literally the sarx) are passed on to us in the messed-up thinking from previous generations and the misconceptions they in turn received from their previous generations. One reason for this is because of the nature of the world's view of reality and the assumptions in false religion itself. These focus primarily on the externals to the exclusion generally of the condition of the spirit of a person. This means that appearances are more important than the heart, that results and symptoms are far more valued than looking past those to healing and nurturing the roots that produce the external symptoms. This is an accurate description of the way the world operates – conformity, but it is not the ways of God – transformation. (Romans 12:1)

I looked into the Greek to unpack this phrase, they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. The discipline here is the same word used as for God's discipline in this passage so it is clear that there is at least some similarity involved. But the description of the motives and goals are what reveal the real contrast.

When I looked up the word used for as seemed best, I found that the original word means as they supposed or thought, for their own pleasure, having to do with their reputation. That is certainly a very good description of much of the supposed discipline as administered by most parents or authority figures. It usually has more to do with their own distorted suppositions about how to train a child through means of force, intimidation and the instilling of fear mixed with attempts to love or offer enticements. Rewards and punishments in varying degrees of mixture is the norm for this world's idea of good discipline. It is the standard by which we almost always measure the way we or others treat our children or subordinates. But this is in contrast to a very different picture of how God views discipline.

He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. While on the surface it may appear that our methods are not really that much different than God's ways, this phrase exposes a whole world of difference – in fact the difference between this world and the ways of heaven. It is true that God's discipline often involves pain and even great discomfort at times, but the greatest distinction is found in the character and motivation of the One who is perfect and is always acting out of the context of complete selflessness. Not only is His objective to have us share in His holiness instead of the self-interests that our earthly parents typically had, but when I looked up the word here translated share I found something even more revealing.

The original Greed word used here is metalambano. It literally means to participate; to accept (and use): – eat, have, be partaker, receive, take, according to Strong's concordance. That immediately reminded me of the word's of Jesus that reflected this very idea. Jesus was the perfect example of how God administers discipline and demonstrated that in the way He treated everyone and especially His own disciples. Here is how I believe He described the purpose and intent of God's discipline.

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. "This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever." (John 6:53-58)

What is even more interesting is that when I looked up all the references to this Greek word metalambano, almost every time it was used it refered to eating food and sometimes in the context of social interaction. So what I am seeing here in Hebrews is a description of discipline as the means that God is using to get me into looking and feeling just like Him. Depending on your current inner picture of God that can either be very exciting or quite intimidating or even disgusting.

What I have not explored enough in this study is what the true meaning of holiness is. What I do know already is that nearly everything that immediately comes to most minds when they hear this word is misleading at best and very distorted and usually confused. Holiness along with other words like piety and righteousness are some of the most obfuscated words in our vocabulary that have been twisted and defaced through centuries of abuse and distortions about what God is like and how He treats people. I believe that if it is possible we would be far ahead in our progress to understand these words if we could completely divest our minds and hearts all previous notions of what they mean before we try to find the true meaning of them from God's perspective.

There is a very good study on the word “holy” put out by Craig Hill from Family Foundations International that I would recommend highly for this study. It is called Holy verses Common and is one of the best explanations I have ever heard on the real meaning of this word “holy”. Basically he explains that this word simply means, “totally and exclusively dedicated to...” To understand this concept it must also be understood that there is always an object or person to which it is dedicated. Therefore, something cannot be considered holy or dedicated unless there is something or someone that is the subject of that dedication.

Craig uses the illustration of a “dedicated phone line” for use of a FAX machine. That phone line is not to be used for any other purpose (common) than for incoming and outgoing FAXes. If that line is used for some other purpose it has been “defiled” or corrupted from its “holiness”, it has then been made “common”. Common does not necessarily mean bad, it just means it is for common use for all sorts of things or people. He shows throughout Scripture how various things or people were viewed as “holy” and what or who the subject of that holiness pointed to. This is made even more clear when it is noted that on the front of the turban of the High Priest in the Old Testament the words were placed, “Holy unto the Lord”. That meant that this person was totally dedicated to the service of God and was not to do anything else but what God wanted for Him.

When this understanding of holiness is applied to this verse in Hebrews it shed a whole different light on what it means to share in God's holiness. A priest by definition is a person whose sole job is to communicate the thoughts of God to people and to carry the problems and sins of people to God. He was to be a mediator for God as God's representative to draw people to God's attractiveness and instruct them about the things and ways of God. If a priest is someone wholly dedicated to God and not to be involved in anything common or unholy, that tells us something very important and wonderful about God's plan for all of us.

God tried to offer His plan early on to the Israelites, but they were so stuck in the fears and misconceptions about God that they failed to accept His offer and in place set up what is typically referred to as the Old Covenant. That arrangement was one in which they promised obedience and tried to perform good enough to impress God instead of allowing God to live inside of them and do the work Himself. Here is God's original offer to them just before He gave them the simplistic description of His character in the 10 Words from Mt. Sinai.

'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. (Exodus 19:5-6)

Now look at the offer made again, but this time to us. How are we going to relate to it?

You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

But you are a chosen race, A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10)

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:5-6 NRSV)

So let me pull all of this together now. Apparently the whole purpose of God's discipline is to remove anything from within me that contaminates my spirit so that I can be totally dedicated exclusively to the purpose of proclaiming the excellencies of Him who has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light. I do this by feeding on the very essence of the body of Christ, filling my mind and heart with the truth about God as primarily revealed in Jesus. As I do this I realize the incredible value of the identity that I have as a child of God and my inclusion in His family. I accept and believe in His mercy and offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Because I am holy dedicated to this purpose of proclaiming His excellencies I must not become contaminated again with the lies about God that have made me common in the past. I am now exclusively His and need to continually feast on the Word of God, both from the written Word and even more from the Father of my spirit, the Word made flesh. This is the true meaning and purpose and method of discipline (discipling) as God sees it in contrast to the performance-oriented, fear-based discipline and punitive punishments that I learned from the system of flesh-thinking.

God, continue to open and expand and fill my mind with the real truth about You. I choose to release to you the lies and roots of bitterness as You expose them in me. At times I know this is going to be very painful, but I also realize that much of the pain is caused because of my resistance to your work to expose and remove those things in me that endanger my survival in Your pure presence of passionate love. Please help me to not be so resistant to Your perfect discipline in my fears and misconceptions about discipline that I have had all of my life. I want to cooperate with you so I can grow and mature and live in the freedom that Your children enjoy in Your presence. Make my life another successful experiment of Your grace and mercy for Your reputation's sake.

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