{"id":5779,"date":"2014-09-07T00:05:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T07:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5779"},"modified":"2014-09-06T17:17:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T00:17:54","slug":"purpose-of-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/09\/07\/purpose-of-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"Purpose of Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

But if his descendants forsake my instructions
\nand fail to obey my regulations,
\nif they do not obey my decrees
\nand fail to keep my commands,
\nthen I will punish their sin with the rod,
\nand their disobedience with beating.
\nBut I will never stop loving him
\nnor fail to keep my promise to him.
\nNo, I will not break my covenant;
\nI will not take back a single word I said.
\nI have sworn an oath to David,
\nand in my holiness I cannot lie:
\nHis dynasty will go on forever;
\nhis kingdom will endure as the sun.
\nIt will be as eternal as the moon,
\nmy faithful witness in the sky!\u201d (Psalm 89:30-37)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dogs don\u2019t\u2014and can\u2019t\u2014understand why they have to go to the veterinarian. The experience is nothing but unpleasant and meaningless for the dog. We understand, but we can never get the dog to understand. But the dog still loves us and trusts us. We\u2019re smarter than dogs. So God has explained the purpose of the pain he sometimes lets us experience.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s discipline, like that of an ideal parent, comes from love. When the neighbor children misbehave, I do not put them in time out. I do not take their privileges from them. I do not send them to bed early. They\u2019re not mine and I don\u2019t care what they do. But my children I love and so they will get it if they misbehave: I care what sort of human beings they will grow up to become. Likewise, if God had just let his people do whatever they please, whenever they please, he wouldn\u2019t be showing them much love. He had made a promise to David and his offspring: they would be his kings forever. But that came at a cost. Because they belonged to him, God was responsible for their discipline. Discipline would save them. Only through discipline, could God keep his promise that David\u2019s throne and kingdom would go on forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs eternal as the moon\u201d is not to be pressed literally, since all physical things will have their end. But the timescale, compared to human lifespan and the transitory nature of all things human, serves as a useful picture for eternity. Accept God\u2019s discipline as simply more evidence of how much he loves you.<\/p>\n

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But if his descendants forsake my instructions and fail to obey my regulations, if they do not obey my decrees and fail to keep my commands, then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their disobedience with beating. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5780,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions\/5780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}