Devotions with Pastor John
Hebrews 12:7-11
"Endure Hardship"
Hebrews 12:7-11 New International Version (NIV)
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined-and everyone undergoes discipline-then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Verse 7: Endure hardship. Life is hard. That's just a fact. Anyone who has lived knows this to be the case. We try to make it look easy. Our society prefers it be easy. Do the right thing and the right thing will happen to you. Movies and TV help. They show how easy it is to fall in love, get rich, be happy. If it's hard for you, they leave you with the impression that their is something wrong with you.
Jesus said that life is hard. He said, "In this world you will have trouble." No way around it. That's the Son of God saying that. We must learn to endure hardship. He goes on to say, "But be of good cheer. I have over come the world." In other words, life is hard, but he'll help you endure. He has already bested the world. And he'll help you to do the same.
Verse 7 goes on: Endure hardship "as discipline." Discipline from whom? From God. Why should we endure this discipline? Because, it says, what Father doesn't discipline his children? A Father's discipline shows that he loves his children. It shows that his children belong to him. It also prepares the children. Prepares them for what? To share in his holiness.
Imagine that. Enduring hardship in this life is a way that God uses to prepare us to share his holiness. What does it mean to share his holiness? It means that we become more like him. What an amazing thing.
Consider what it means to follow Jesus. For a student to follow a master means that the student becomes more and more like the master. Suffering is a big part of discipleship. Suffering (hardship) prepares us to share in the life of Jesus, which had everything to do with suffering. To follow Jesus is to follow him to the cross. To be crucified with him. To rise with him. Hardship prepares us for resurrection.
Being a parent myself, I want to prepare my children for life. Real life. So I must teach them what I can about enduring hardship. Because life is hard. I need to teach them how to cope with that hardship. In the process of experiencing hardship and coping well, they grow to become mature. They grow through their own experience of hardship to be able to help others understand the meaning in their own hardship. In hardship they learn to rely on God by faith.
I think God is teaching the same things. Through hardship he sees us grow in maturity, experience to help others and in reliance by faith upon Him.
Learning how to endure hardship is important. Consider the army. We live in a fallen world and we need the army to fight. When we call on them to fight, with whom would you rather serve? With those who had never gone to battle or with those who were experienced in battle. Since life is hard and requires us to fight, God has made certain that there are plenty around us who have endured hardship and know how to fight. They are good teachers.
Verse 11 ends with a promise: enduring hardship produces a harvest of righteousness and peace. In other words, it makes you stronger and more peaceful. Better able to cope. Better able to serve. Better able to follow Christ.
As we endure the hardship of this virus, please keep these verses in mind. We are being disciplined. But God loves us. And in the end, on the other side of this pandemic, we shall emerge closer to God, more peaceful in a unsettled world, and more full of the righteousness of Christ.
May the Lord bless and keep you. Hold fast, Zion. Thank you for reading.
Our prayer today is the prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.