In previous devotionals on God's chastening, we have learned...
- that God corrects those who are His children
- that suffering is often employed in correction
- that God uses chastening as a means to conform us more to the image of Jesus Christ
For these reasons we are not to despise God's chastening in our lives. Instead, we can rejoice because when God chastens us, it confirms that we are His children. We can also rejoice knowing that God is giving us opportunity to grow in Christ-likeness.
I really like verse 17 above. This is a real comfort to me. When God makes me sore and wounded in the process of sanctifying me, I can be assured that He will finish the job. He will not leave me sore and wounded. He always finishes what He starts.
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: {perform: or, finish } (KJV)
He will finish the job by binding up the sore spots and making us whole again. I think of a surgeon and my own experience. I was born with a mouth that didn't work right. Because of my severe overbite, I could not bite into a sandwich or cookie with my front teeth like other people could. I could not eat corn off the cob and I could not chew my food properly. To fix the problem, I went through three years of braces and then the surgeon had to cut my upper jaw in two to saw off the excess bone. If he had sawed my upper jaw off and didn't finish the job, I would be in pretty bad shape today. But he finished the job and bound up my wound so it could heal. Today I can eat normally. Sometimes God has to wound us to shape us into the people he wants us to be. But He will always make us whole in the end.
Where are you in this process? Are you wounded? Are you sore? Take heart. God will finish the job. He will bind up your sore spots and He will make you whole.
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