DISCIPLINE
DISCIPLINE
There is no subject of the same personal interest to us after our salvation as the discipline of the Lord. As well as I remember, the word translated “chastening” in the Old Testament is about forty times translated “correction”, and this gives a better idea of the Lord’s mind than chastening. There are two kinds of discipline: one to correct you, and the other to help you. I see that the good effect of discipline is to cast you on the Lord, not so much to find out the cause of it, as to draw you to Himself. It is then and there you are severed from the idol which was a mote in your eye. I think it is possible to see, though not near the Lord, the cause for a particular discipline, and others are very ready to see the cause for it. But there is one thing that you can never learn unless you are quite near the Lord, and that is, the way to get out of the wrong path, and to find the right one. If Lot had been near the Lord he would have found the right path; he adopted one of his own choosing. Jacob (Genesis 35) is told by the Lord to go up to Bethel; that was the right path. After a lapse of twenty years, he returns to it. The point of departure is the point of restoration, and, to me, that is the one thing essential. This Peter learns in John 21. In the discipline to help you, you will be continually touched by the minuteness of His interest in you. You are made low by some grief to prepare you for a season of blessing. G. V. W. used to say that if we are not brought low before we receive some new blessing, we shall be immediately afterwards. In principle no flesh can glory in His presence.
I believe Christians lose much because they are not in full confidence of heart with the Lord. If the hairs of my head are numbered by Him, why should I shrink from making known to Him all my requests? I surely should not, if I believed that He cares more for me than any one [p. 78] else in the world cares for me. May you more and more enjoy the blessed reality of sitting under His shadow with great delight. Prefer His company to any and every one’s. Accustom yourself to seclusion with Him, and the more you do, the more you will cultivate it.