THE LOVE OF THE LORD

EXPRESSED THROUGH DISCIPLINE

BY MICHAEL SHAMBERGER

When you think of “love” what is the first thought that comes to your mind?

Now, for the majority of us who did not think “God” or “Jesus” as our first thought for love, no condemnation. But here’s a thought for us to consider. Scripture says that God is love (1 John 4:8). Since love is who God is and what God is, can there be any greater lover anywhere than God Almighty? So why is it that we don’t think of God first when it comes to love?

Most of us are hopefully taught to love at an early age. But we find that love means diff erent things for diff erent people. One commonality that love seems to carry across the various meanings is that love is something good. It might be kind, nice, gentle, giving, caring, selfless, thoughtful, etc. But whatever the description, it is a good and positive experience for the giver and the receiver. From our human perspective if love hurts, it’s not love to us. If love is tough, painful or abrasive, it’s not love to us. It must feel right, it must sound right, and it must align with our human ideologies of love for us to consider it as love. But what if God’s definition and perspective of love is much broader than ours? If His definition of love includes aspects that we don’t include, then who is right and who is wrong? And how does this gap in the understanding of love aff ect us today in how we live, train our children, and relate to each other, and to God? One popular passage of scripture that people generally refer to when talking about godly love

is 1 Corinthians 13. Verses 4-8a read as follows, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” So we see that some of the godly love characteristics mentioned in this scripture passage are patience, kindness, protection, trust, and hope. These all seem very positive and give you a warm feeling, right? So we humans don’t have a lot of trouble agreeing with these aspects of God’s love. But let’s take a look at another aspect of God’s love that we don’t always see or agree with as being love. Hebrews 12:4-11 NIV states: “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.’

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (emphasis mine).

Notice that the beginning of verse 5 says that this is a word of encouragement. What?!? Is there a misinterpretation going on here? Who is being encouraged by talking about discipline? But yes, it is encouraging when we look at it from God’s viewpoint. The thought we generally focus in on in this passage is “discipline.” But if we attempt to look at it from God’s heart and perspective I think you will see that the main focus should be on the love of God expressed through discipline. In verse 6 we see that the Lord disciplines those He loves, and verse 10 tells us that God disciplines us for our good. Do you see the heart of God here? He doesn’t just send discipline our way willy-nilly or for the purpose of harming us. Let’s look at the definition of Discipline:

Discipline: “to train, chasten, correct” (Strong’s Concordance)

• to train: “to undergo instruction, discipline, or drill”

• chasten: “to correct by punishment or suff ering; to prune (something, such as a work or style of art) of excess, pretense, or falsity; to cause to be more humble or restrained”

• correct: “to make or set right, amend; to discipline or punish” (Webster’s Dictionary)

For 19 years I was a high school boys soccer coach in North Carolina. Soccer season was in the fall for us and so the summer months were used for training. The workouts were voluntary and guys who were not committed to the process usually did not come very often, for it was hot and humid and I pushed them to get better. The main things that we focused on in our training during those weeks was conditioning and the basics of soccer. No one liked it while going through that training, but the guys really liked the results that came from it in terms of winning, having fun, championships, and playoffs.

Why did I push my players hard during the summer? I disciplined or trained them the way I did because I loved them and I wanted to position them to attain the success they really wanted in soccer. Looking back on the passage in Hebrews 12:4- 11, there are some tough sounding words or phrases in there. Here are a few examples:

• “when He rebukes you” (v. 5)

• “He chastens” (v. 6)

• “endure hardship” (v. 7), and

• “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” (v. 11)

Even though all of these sound rather harsh and like nothing you would want to voluntarily participate in, remember the context of the full passage: that God’s heart is for us. God is looking out for our best; He disciplines those He loves; and His discipline is for our good. Remember, the definition of discipline is to train, chasten or correct. That middle word, chasten, can involve punishment that can be painful. God gives us that type of discipline for our good and because He loves us.

But let me be clear – discipline is different from abuse. This is not at all what God is about. That type of behavior is evil and demonic and should be reported to appropriate authorities immediately. So please do not mix together what I am talking about with ungodly abuse and mistreatment.

“God is looking out for our best; He disciplines those He loves; and His discipline is for our good.

Consider this story the Apostle Paul tells about himself in 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 NLT “If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suff er for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Why did God want to keep Paul from becoming proud? Because Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall according to Proverbs 16:18 NLT. God cared enough about Paul and about the people Paul would be influencing, to do what was best to keep Paul from falling spiritually due to his vulnerability to be prideful. Paul didn’t like it at first, and asked God to take that messenger of Satan away on three occasions. But the response from God was, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Paul grew to such a place of maturity in the Lord that he began to rejoice in his weak areas because that’s where he recognized and felt God’s strength working in him and through him. I don’t know about you but I’m very grateful for God loving Paul and me enough to keep Paul humble, because I have been greatly impacted by the writings and ministry of Paul.

When we only see love through the perspective of the warm fuzzies and making people feel good, we are missing a completely diff erent, very important aspect of God’s character and nature: His discipline as love.

This causes us to not understand, or to misunderstand, His dealings in our lives many times. What needs to happen is for us to change or add onto what we believe about God and His love.

So one of the things we should do is to retrain our thinking as to what real love is from God’s perspective. God has a much bigger definition of love than we do. Remember Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV? “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

When we limit the expressions of love to our finite human concepts of love we misunderstand God’s love for us. In order to more fully understand that God’s ways are not our ways and that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts we need to have a revamping of our thinking. Consider Romans 12:1-2 NLT: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (emphasis mine).

We need to allow God to transform our thinking according to His Word – His full Word. When we submit to the fullness of God’s Word in our daily lives our thinking will automatically begin to change. We will see perspectives and revelations of His Word that we had never seen before. His Word will become alive to us and something that we desire, instead of being a religious book that is simply a duty to read for Christians.

God is love and God loves us fully. But we have failed so many times to see, understand, or accept His love expressed to us because we have tried to make it fit within our own concepts of what love is, rather than seek to understand love first from the way God has designed it. You are blessed. Walk in the security of His love for you.

Michael Shamberger is the owner of Masterpiece Consulting Solutions, LLC. He helps individuals, organizations, churches and ministries find solutions and discover pathways toward their next goal or phase in life. He is the author of “The Challenge” and “Beyond the Pitch: Soccer Strategies for Winning at Life.” He lives in Fayetteville, NC with his wife Cynthia and attends Deeper Fellowship Church. He is the father of two adult children, the proud grandfather of 7 and great-grandfather of 1. You can follow him at https://masterpiececs.com/

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