You must not think that the Father raises you like most parents raise their children nowadays and give their responsibility of parenting and nurturing to others and let their children make their own decisions and let them do whatever they want to do and live according to their own will, in order to keep them happy and satisfied. Many parents are too busy with their own lives. Therefore they don’t raise their children according to God’s will with Biblical principles and don’t discipline and correct their children as they should, because it takes a lot of patience and energy. ngaphandle koko, many parents don’t believe that correcting and punishing undesirable behavior of a child is of this age and doesn’t show that you love a child. Therefore many parents allow their children to do their own thing and to make their own choices. Many parents are more their children’s friends and life-coaches, who encourage them to succeed, so that they can show off to others, than their parents. But God is not like that. Because whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges.
The Father loves His children
For whom the Lord loves He corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights (IMizekeliso 3:12)
God is a Father, Who loves His children and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to His children. The Father wants to protect His children and keep them from evil. Because evil leads to destruction. Therefore the Father warns His children through His Word and His Spirit.
The Father cares for His children and leads His children into the truth and He instructs, corrects, chastens (disciplines), and scourges His children so that they might be partakers of His holiness (IsiHebhere 12:5-10).
This is not always pleasant and nice, but it is needed to get rid of the rebellious, prideful, and sinful behavior of the old man, who always exalts himself above God, His Word, and His Spirit (Funda kwakhona: ‘The old man’ kwaye ‘Inkqubo ebuhlungu eyaziwa ngokuba kukufa‘).
Whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children (sons), Unyana wam, despise not thou the chastening (discipline) of the Lord, nor faint (be discouraged) when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards (illegitimate), and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence (respect): shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, kwaye uphile? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness (IsiHebhere 12:5-9)
It is not written in the Word that whom the Lord loves and who belongs to Him, He let them be and allow them to make their own rules. It is not written in the Word, that it doesn’t matter how someone lives. Hayi, Lithi iLizwi, that whom the Lord loves He chastens and that He scourges every son, who belongs to Him.
God’s love doesn’t consist of pleasant and soft words, patting on the head, and tolerance, but the love of God consists of confronting and sometimes hard words, chastisement, and scourging of the flesh (likhuphe ixhego).
If someone says, that (s)he is born again and belongs to God, but lives like the world and be led by his or her own will and the lusts and desires of the flesh and do the same things, which those, who don’t know God and don’t belong to Him, do and which are described in the Word as sin, without being confronted and without being corrected and chastened, then the Word says, that the person is a bastard and not a son of God.
Because the Father shall confront, correct, and chastise His true sons (amadoda nabafazi) ngoYesu Kristu; the Word and the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in His sons.
He will not let you do those things, which you want to do, but goes against His will, but He shall confront you and call you to repentance and to remove those things, which are not according to His will, out of your life.
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten”
UYesu uthi: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (ISityhilelo 3:19)
You don’t hear these words often in the modern gospel. But these are words, which Jesus spoke after His death and resurrection and are part of the life of the new man, who is born again in Christ and belongs to Him.
Because these words are not always preached, these words are not always known among believers.
Ngoko ke, many believers panic when they are rebuked or chastened.
They think it’s from the devil and that they are being accused by him, while in reality the rebuke and chastisement are coming from Jesus.
The Word of God reveals the works of the flesh and condemns the works of the flesh.
Through the knowledge of the Word and the power of the Spirit, the new man shall likhuphe ixhego kwaye yambathani umntu omtsha and walk after the Spirit and be a partaker of the holiness and the glory of God.
The chastening shall yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy (1 UPetros 4:12-13)
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised (trained) thereby (IsiHebhere 12:11)
He shall not keep you for certain situations and things in life, but He will let you go through it. So that in those situations and through the things in life you shall be formed and die to the flesh and spiritually mature as a son of God after His image and learn to be fully obedient to Jesus Christ; the Word and live in obedience to Him and walk as son of God in His will.
‘Yibani yityuwa yehlabathi‘
