ZPCBlog

About the author: Jim and his wife, Dana, joined ZPC in 1998 and were married at ZPC that same year. They have two wonderful daughters who love the Lord: Caroline, who is married to Alex, and Rachel. Jim has enjoyed serving at ZPC through the years.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:11

As we delight in the Advent season with anticipation of our preeminent Lord and in light of our Hebrews 12 passage, I feel compelled to acknowledge Jesus as our prime example—he embraced the father’s discipline, enabling us to endure and to welcome, rather than resist, God’s essential character-forming work. For he persevered under the cross of Christ, which represents the greatest suffering in history since Jesus, who not only suffered horrifically in a physical sense, but also profoundly in a spiritual sense in experiencing God’s just wrath in taking upon himself the sin of the world. God is the great promise keeper so we can endure his discipline strengthened by the promise of future reward and joy.

Unpacking the greek word for discipline, we see similarly in the 1st century as in our 21st century, it was and is commonly used in childrearing through training and correction. This discipline leads to perseverance during difficult but fruit-bearing trials in our lives to produce “the peace that surpasses all understanding” and in so doing proving our sonship to God. Since Jesus is the author of faith itself, then our strength to persevere in trials is found in the celebrated imperative to “fix our eyes on Jesus”

At God-appointed times, his perfect discipline for us admittedly feels like punishment too difficult to bear, but through retrospection of our lives is developmental for our righteous character and conduct. Praise God for the Good Shepherd knows his sheep and we can rest in his loving care. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father,
We praise your matchless name and we are awed by your unfathomable wisdom, beauty, and power so enable us as your wayward sheep to listen to your voice so we can rest under your yoke for we know you are gentle and lowly in heart. 
In Jesus name,
Amen

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