How Can I Strengthen My Church?
(Positive Attitudes Lead To Positive Actions)

A Large Crowd of Witnesses

Hebrews 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

The picture now changes from a race to a fight against sin.

Our undaunted Captain is the Lord Jesus; no one ever endured such hostility from sinners as He.

Whenever we have a tendency to grow weary and discouraged, we should think of what He went through. Our trials will seem trifling by comparison.

Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.

We are engaged in a ceaseless striving against sin.

Yet we have not resisted to the point of bloodshed, that is, to the point of death. He did!

Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

The Christian view of suffering is now presented. Why do persecution, testings, trials, sickness, pain, sorrow, and trouble come into the life of the believer? Are they a sign of God’s anger or displeasure? Do they happen by chance? How should we react to them?

These verses teach that these things are part of God’s educative process for His children. Although they do not come from God, He permits them, then overrules them for His glory, for our good, and for the blessing of others.

Nothing happens by chance to the Christian.

Tragedies are blessings in disguise, and disappointments are His appointments. God harnesses the adverse circumstances of life to conform us to the image of Christ. 

So the early Hebrew believers were exhorted to remember Proverbs 3:11, 12, where God addresses them as sons. There He warns them against despising His discipline or losing courage under His rebuke.

If they rebel or give up, they lose the benefit of His dealings with them and fail to learn His lessons.

Hebrews 12:6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”

When we read the word chastening, or chastisement, we tend to think of a whipping. But here the word means child training or education. It includes instruction, discipline, correction, and warning. All are designed to cultivate Christian virtues and drive out evil.

In this passage, the chastening was not punishment for wrongdoing, but training through persecution.

The passage in Proverbs distinctly states that God’s discipline is a proof of His love, and no son of His escapes chastisement. How can we apply this to our lives?

Hebrews 12:7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

By remaining submissive to the chastening of God, we permit His discipline to mold us into His image.

If we try to short-circuit His dealings with us, He may have to teach us over a longer period of time, using more instructive, and consequently, more difficult methods. There are grades in the school of God, and promotion comes only when we have learned our lessons.

So when testings come to us, we should realize that God is treating us as sons. In any normal fatherson relationship, the father trains his son because he loves him and wants the best for him.

God loves us too much to let us develop naturally.

Hebrews 12:8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

In the spiritual realm, those who do not experience God’s discipline are illegitimate children, not true sons. After all, a gardener does not prune thistles, but he does prune grapevines. As in the natural, so in the spiritual.

Hebrews 12:9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

Most of us have experienced discipline from our human fathers. We did not interpret this as a sign that they hated us. We realized that they were interested in our welfare, and we paid them respect.

How much more should we respect the training of the Father of spirits and live! God is the Father (or source) of all beings that are spirit or that have a spirit.

Man is a spirit dwelling in a human body. By being subject to God we enjoy life in its truest sense.

Hebrews 12:10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

The discipline of earthly parents is not perfect. It lasts only for a time, that is, during childhood and youth. If it has not succeeded then, it can do no more. And it is as seemed best to them, according to what they think is right. Sometimes it may not be right.

But God’s discipline is always perfect. His love is infinite and His wisdom is infallible.

His chastenings are never the result of whim, but always for our profit.

His objective is that we may be partakers of His holiness. And godliness can never be produced outside God’s school.

Jowett explains: The purpose of God’s chastening is not punitive but creative. He chastens “that we may share His holiness.” The phrase “that we may share” has direction in it, and the direction points toward a purified and beautified life. The fire which is kindled is not a bonfire, blazing heedlessly and unguardedly, and consuming precious things; it is a refiner’s fire, and the Refiner sits by it, and He is firmly and patiently and gently bringing holiness out of carelessness and stability out of weakness. God is always creating even when He is using the darker means of grace. He is producing the fruits and flowers of the Spirit. His love is always in quest of lovely things.

Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

At the time, all discipline seems painful. But it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Leslie Weatherhead wrote, “Like all men I love and prefer the sunny uplands of experience, where health, happiness, and success abound, but I have learned far more about God and life and myself in the darkness of fear and failure than I have ever learned in the sunshine. There are such things as the treasures of darkness. The darkness, thank God, passes. But what one learns in the darkness one possesses for ever. “The trying things,” says Bishop Fenelon, “which you fancy come between God and you, will prove means of unity with Him, if you bear them humbly. Those things that overwhelm us and upset our pride, do more good than all that which excites and inspirits us.”

Macdonald, Farstad Grady Scott, Hindson, E.E.