0353. God's Child-Training

God’s Child-Training

"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Heb_12:6).

The word translated "chasteneth" has in it the thought of "child traineth." God has children and He is training them up for His service. This training includes both chastening and the stronger method of scourging.

To-day many parents have ceased to demand obedience of their children. The passage "Children obey your parents" is translated to the taste of young America, something like this: "Parents obey your children, for this is highly pleasing to young America;" and, one might well add, "And will bring them all to the dogs, the ditch and the devil."

However, whether we demand obedience at our home, or not, God does demand it in His. God speaks unto us as unto sons; He deals with us as sons; He loves us as sons, and He chastens us as sons, for "what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?"

When professed believers sin and they are not chastened or scourged, it is because they are "bastards and not sons."

If we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence, should we not much more be in subjection to the Father of our spirits; "for they verily for a few days chastened us as it seemed right unto them: but He for our profit, that we might be partaker of His holiness."

Let us never shun the rod, but rather let us ask God to place it upon us, until He has caused us to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The rod of God will only fall when His love and thought for us makes it imperative for our good. We need not fear the smiting of our Father’s hand, for we are His children, and He loves His own: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR