Spiritual Maturity Step 6: Accept Discipline • DDCommunity

How happy is anyone you discipline and teach from your law (Ps. 94:12 CSB).

Accepting Discipline with Joy

Do you just want to laugh out loud when you read that verse? “Happy is anyone you discipline”? “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Discipline and happiness don’t seem to be a natural duo! But godly discipline demonstrates love as we are directed to live in submission to Him.

The Old Testament is replete with God’s discipline and teaching methods. He established covenants with His people that clearly articulated the terms of the agreements. He clarified the blessings of obedience and the consequences of rebellion. But over and over again, His people chose to go their own way while disregarding God’s pleas to allow Him to be their Savior, sustainer, and benefactor.

His deep desire was to be in an intimate relationship with the people He set free. Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you. I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke your yoke and made you walk erect (Lev. 26:11–13 NASB).

As disciples of Christ, we are discipled, or disciplined.

Repeatedly, we read of the Israelites’ rebellion and disregard for God and His authority. Listen, heavens, and hear, earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Sons I have raised and brought up, but they have revolted against Me” (Isa. 1:2 NASB). But just as often, He disciplined His children to bring them to repentance.

Like the Israelites, when we experience forgiveness of sin and commit our lives to Jesus, He honors our commitment and trains us to walk in His ways. As disciples of Christ, we are discipled, or disciplined, to become Christ-like.

Jesus took our punishment at the cross. Therefore, when I accept His sacrifice on my behalf, punishment for sin is no longer necessary. The discipline I receive is to teach me and train me in the way I should go to become a more effective follower of Christ.

The Holy Spirit helps me accept discipline.

Not only does He train me through His words, but the Holy Spirit also takes up residence in my life so that I may more fully know how to walk in His ways and accept His discipline.

“But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I am leaving; for if I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world regarding sin, and righteousness, and judgment: regarding sin, because they do not believe in Me; and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you no longer are going to see Me; and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present time. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take from Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; this is why I said that He takes from Mine and will disclose it to you.”
John 16:7–15 NASB

How do I accept discipline?

Luke 7:23 and Matthew 11:6 (CSB) remind us that “blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me”—blessed is the person who gladly accepts God’s discipline and training. Continually, we are tempted to bristle at the discipline of God. After all, shouldn’t God make my life easy? But trials train us to depend on God more deeply. They also ingrain relevant truth more significantly into our lives. If we keep our eyes wide open, we witness the all-sufficiency of Christ as we faithfully submit to His will.

How do I accept discipline? Remembering all your previous steps to spiritual maturity enables you to climb higher. As I connect to God’s Word, fear the Lord, experience forgiveness of sins, choose righteousness, and depend on God, I can more easily know that He has the best plans in mind for me. When I give back to Him all that He has given to me, I am fashioned more and more into His likeness.

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was granted to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to protect what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Hold on to the example of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Protect, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
2 Tim. 1:7–14 NASB

Obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free (Eph. 6:5–8 ESV).

Accepting God’s discipline leads to spiritual maturity.

God demonstrates His love as He teaches us His ways through discipline. Many temptations attempt to lure us away from Christ-likeness. But we can endure the temptations with the help of the Holy Spirit who is at work in the believers’ lives to teach us the way to go. It is only Jesus who can give me the victory over sin! Therefore, I must welcome His teaching process and accept His discipline as I grow in Christ-likeness.

More Steps to Spiritual Maturity

Dive deeper into As a Little Child: Conversations with the Father 10 Steps to Spiritual Maturity with these posts:

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