Revelation 3:19
I am the One Who corrects and disciplines everyone I love. Be diligent and turn from your indifference.
This is one of the admonitions we are to heed as God's church today. And this is not the only place we see this in the Bible.
Hebrews 12:5-6 tells us: And have you forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son."
The writer of Hebrews is quoting Proverbs 3:11-12, that says, My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent His rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.
Even in the earliest scroll ever recorded in the Bible, the Book of Job, Elihu tells us, But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, He tells them what they have done--that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil. If they obey and serve Him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment. But if they will not listen, they will perish by the sword and die without knowledge (Job 36:8-12).
So we see that the whole Word, from the first to the last records, admonish us, as His church, His sons and daughters, to listen to His rebuke and correction when we err; to pay attention to what we are learning of God's ways to apply them to our thinking processes and attitudes and our daily lives and in our interactions with one another, and not be indifferent or luke-warm about any of these things.
And to consider our own hearts whenever we encounter opposition or trials or troubles or temptations or persecutions, to see these sorrows as our dear Father's teaching us to change something that we are holding on to; to let go of that grudge, or to pay that bill, or to forgive that one that hurt or harmed us, or change our entertainment to something more wholesome, or whatever we are allowing into our lives that we are indifferent to, that is not conducive to our spiritual maturing in growing closer to our Lord.
Jesus is coming soon, and I want to be ready to meet Him face-to-face, having nothing in my mind or heart that I would be ashamed to share with Him. And I want the same for all of us.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
