Talk Tuesday-Discipline...Ouch!

This week before service began, the worship team did a devotional on Colossians 3:1-17. As each member shared what the Word of God revealed to them, someone spoke on verses 8-14, noting that the responsibility is ours to actively 'put on' and 'put off' certain godly and ungodly characteristics:

8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Colossians 3:8-14

It was at this point that the following complaint escaped from my lips, “Oh man, the LORD never lets me get away with anything!” Of course, this is not entirely true, but you know what they say- perception is reality. Well, since the words had already 'slipped out' of my mouth, I continued headlong into my childish tirade, “I always get disciplined and I am very well acquainted with the following verses, 'My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
 and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, 
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son' (I usually add the words 'and daughter' to that),” Hebrews 12:5-6. I personally call them 'spiritual 2 x 4's' or 'licks'...you know, like 'spankings'. God uses His Word to correct my attitude many times...obviously it's because I need the correction.

Psalm 119:105 states, "Your word is a lamp to my feet
 and a light for my path." Without the Word of God, we would not know when we are wrong or when we are right. Our keen sense of 'humanistic morality', predicated upon what we deem as just or unjust, is often directed by the tide of social opinion-and that 'tide' is often influenced by the culture we live in. In order to remain rooted in Christ, we must abide in Him-abide in His Word (John 15). When I feel the urge to whine about the fact that I am always getting 'spanked', I think about Matthew 7:13-14, and my complaint becomes a blessing: “13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” God's Word keeps us from destruction, and leads us through the narrow gate to eternal life. The last thing I meditated on yesterday was John 12:24, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds,” but that is a topic for another week...

p.s. Please don't forget to pray for our brother in chains, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who is in an an Iranian jail awaiting execution for the 'crime' of converting to Christianity.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/world/meast/iran-detained-pastor/index.html