We are continuing with our investigation of the gap
between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit
of unbelief. The issue is
discipline, and it will drive you to one or the other. Unbelief will receive discipline (from God),
as well as faith. Any “bad response”
will drive you to the pit; God’s advice throughout this passage is to respond
well to His correctives, and be lifted to the pinnacle of faith, a joyful
relationship with your Creator. So, the
question is begged and on the table:
What is a Good Response?
In our text the writer poses the question: What child isn’t disciplined? This is a loaded question in contemporary
culture’s parenting mode. The lack of
even the simplest forms of accountability when it comes to civil behavior, or
manners, runs rampant in our land. So is
the result – a lack of respect for any kind of authority, and a nation’s
character crumbling like the Towers on 9/11.
In fairness, you must consider the “WHY” behind parents not
saying “no” to their children, backed-up by consequences. It stems from a faulty evaluation of who we
are at our base nature. Parents imagine
their children are “good”, and unacceptable behavior is merely a phase, which
will give way to that inherrent goodness, like cream in a milk bottle, rising
to the top.
Scripture informs us[1] that our sin nature does not give way…it
resists any inhibition whatsoever:
For I know how stubborn and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron. Your heads are as hard as bronze.
Isaiah 48:4
So, a child left uncorrected, unaccountable, doesn’t
tire of his unacceptable behavior, changing into a fine human being – he keeps
pushing the envelope until it breaks. He
abuses parents, peers, and those who get in his way, until God, or the penal
system intervene. Just like a garden
that is left unattended, a lack of discipline will evolve into a rowdy mess of
weeds, unproductive, unsightly, and totally unstable. Humans in that category are tempermental,
angry, selfish, sociopathic child-adults, unable to play nice
with others.
A side-effect to all this is the child infecting the parents. Many a parent, unwilling to say “no” to their
child, has become frustrated that their hands-off routine didn’t work! They get to that last straw of frustration
and begin to abuse their child(ren), in a knee-jerk rebound from their failure. What then replaces permissiveness is overbearing
punishment, frustrating the child beyond any hope of accepting the parent’s
intended good will. The conclusion is
that permissive parenting doesn’t work, because it is founded on a faulty
premise: good children left to
their own choices make good choices.
How wrong, and how sad.
For You Today
True discipline
always begins with love for the child.
Defined by He who IS LOVE, genuine discipline is always
accountability-based, instructive, helping a child to learn to obey God’s
authority, so he can grow into God’s loved and loving child:
For the whole law can be summed up in this
one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:14
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper on
today’s topic, explore some of these: Punishment Island and Earth Day - Part 4
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[1] The word “stubborn” appears 66 times, relative to human obstinacy – (see the list here)
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