“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” -Proverbs 3:11-12 (NIV)
(This post is part of a series on the character of God, based on Exodus 34:6-7).
A few years ago, I preached a message series about the five character traits God mentions in Exodus 34:6-7: Compassion, Grace, Patience, Love, and Faithfulness. But when I came to the next part of what God said about himself in Exodus 34 — that he does not leave the guilty unpunished, I struggled to understand how a good and gracious God could turn around and punish people for their sins.
Didn’t one of those things contradict the other?
I found myself wrestling with questions like these:
If God was really that gracious, wouldn’t he let people off the hook for their mistakes?
If he wasn’t letting people off the hook, doesn’t that prove he’s not as compassionate and gracious as he claims?
My way of solving that little theological problem was to talk about the five positive traits God mentioned in the first part of the verse and then move on to the next sermon series without ever addressing the concept of God’s discipline. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to depress people with a sermon about judgment and discipline after just talking about all these positive things like love and mercy.
Looking back, I just have one question for my younger preacher self… What was I thinking?!?
Creating God in our Own Image
First of all, if I intentionally ignore a part of God’s character because I’m uncomfortable with it, I’m creating God in my own image. And if I teach people to worship a version of God that’s different than the way God describes himself in the Bible, I’m probably leading people into a form of idolatry. And that’s serious business.
But beyond that, I think my entire premise was wrong to begin with. God’s discipline doesn’t undermine his claim of being a loving and merciful father, it proves his point! Setting clear boundaries and enforcing consequences for continued bad behavior are some of the concrete ways that God shows his love.
After all… what good and loving father would let his children do whatever they wanted with no consequences?
What good and loving mother would let her children engage in destructive behaviors without intervening?
And if those parents did sit back and let the kids do as they pleased… what kind of adults would those kids grow up to be? Certainly not the mature, Christ-centered, compassionate ones God wants them to be.
If we can acknowledge that the best parents are the ones who set clear boundaries and hold their children accountable to the standards that have been set, we should be able to see how the same principle applies to our relationship with God.
God’s Discipline Proves His Love.
“Blessed is the one you discipline, Lord, the one you teach from your law…” Psalm 94:12 (NIV)
Proverbs 3:11-12 and Hebrews 12:7-10 teach us some important principles about God’s discipline:
It’s motivated by his great love for us.
It prioritizes our long-term holiness over our short-term happiness.
It’s corrective, not vindictive.
It’s intended for our good, not harm.
The reason God disciplines his children is because he’s fully aware of how harmful it would be to allow us to keep sinning without intervening. God knows how costly and contagious sin can be, and he’s not willing to let us go further and further down that path.
Ideally, we would come to our senses and repent of our sins on our own, without the need for divine discipline. And that’s where God’s patience (slow to anger) comes in. But if we’ve been given chance after chance to repent on our own, and we don’t seem to be taking advantage of the time God has given us to turn away from our sin, God is going to intervene with divine discipline to correct us.
He simply loves us too much to sit back and watch us destroy our lives.
Conclusion
“For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.” -Proverbs 5:23 (NIV)
God is a loving and merciful father. And God disciplines those he loves. No discipline is enjoyable in the moment, but we need to remind ourselves that it’s for our good. God loves us too much to let us continue down a path that he knows is destructive, so he will intervene to grab our attention and lead us towards a healthier path.