Are You Blessed?

Check out this scripture that I read the other day:

"Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law," Psalms 94:12

I sat back and thought, wow, blessed is the man you discipline! That is not two terms that I would associate together. The next time I have to go into the bedroom to discipline my child I am going to say "Son, I am about to bless you." I can just imagine the face he would give me as I am about to administer the board of education to his seat of higher learning. Discipline is something that we all face in life, and it amazes my five year old that daddy has consequences for his actions just like he does. Let's look at two things that the psalmist says bring the blessing of God into our life.

Discipline - The Bible has a lot to say about the discipline of the Lord. I believe the foundation of discipline is best framed by Proverbs, those God loves he corrects. It even says that those in whom he delights he will discipline. His primary motivation in correcting us is love. God does not correct us from a place of anger and wanting to punish us. He is a holy God, and for us to walk with him we must have the sin purged from our lives.

Here is the thing that I have discovered about discipline, it does hurt. There is pain in correction. That pain will look different with each situation that we encounter. The stage of life that I am in causes me to look at the world through the lens of my children. When it is time to discipline my three year old, he automatically begins a negotiation to lessen the pain of the consequence. Don't we do that sometimes? We want to have less pain when we are going through a time of correction. I think that sometimes we get so focused on the immediate that we forget what God is really doing through the correction. I like what the book of Hebrews says about discipline it may hurt for the moment, but it will produce a harvest of righteousness.

Teach from your law - When God corrects us it is the Word that he uses. Pau stated to Timothy that all scripture is profitable to reproof, correction and instruction. When something is highlighted in our life that needs to change our response determines the severity of discipline that comes in our life. If our heart is soft towards God then all that is needed is the instruction from the Word. Our heart will receive the seed and change will be produced. If our heart is more resistant, the word becomes a correction, and there is more pain associated with the correction. When our heart is hard reproof is necessary, and then the Word must produce brokenness in our hearts.

When God releases his Word in correction Hebrews says that it pierces and divides the soul and the spirit, the thought and the intentions of the heart. When we read the Bible we have an opportunity to allow what we read to separate what is flesh out of our life. The Bible will read the intentions that we have, and can purify and correct even the deepest part of our heart.

When we embrace his discipline, and we receive the correction of the Word of God it will allow his blessing to flow in greater ways in our life.