Three Reasons for Painful Chastening

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 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. (Hebrews 12:5-10)

Life is Difficult

No matter who you are, whether you are saved or unsaved, life is difficult. If you are unsaved, your life is difficult because you do not have the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. If you are saved, your life is difficult because you do have the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. If you got saved thinking your life would not be difficult any more, you were wrong. Whether you are saved or unsaved, life is difficult and full of trouble. Now, for the unsaved, there is no hope. At the end of the road is Hell—a lake of fire forever and ever. For the saved, we can look forward to a better land. But, throughout life, we are going to be dealing with pain and struggle and difficulty; and for those of us who are saved, the chastening hand of God. In Hebrews 12:10, we see three purposes that lie behind the chastening we receive. Recently, we discussed the first purpose – chastening is for pleasure. “For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.” God does not take pleasure in the fact that we are being chastened; but rather, the pleasure is because He knows that chastening has divine blessing and benefit as its end result.

Secondly, chastening is for profit. “But he for our profit.” Personal profit or benefit is only realized following pain. Now, I know we are living in a world that does not want to believe that. People want a pill they can take to eat all they want and still lose weight. We want great relationships without having to make any investments in them. There is no free lunch. As athletes say, “No pain, no gain.” There is no way to get paid in advance in the spiritual realm. You cannot get the profit unless you endure the pain. God says if we endure chastening, then we will be rewarded. God will not do for us what we must do for ourselves.

Hebrews 11:6 says “he that cometh to God.” God wants us to come to Him. Jesus said, “Come unto me, all yet that labour and are heavy leaden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Some people do not benefit from the Lord because they are not willing to come to Him. They are what I call “couch potato Christians.” They just sit around, wanting everything to come to them. That is not the way God designed for us to work. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said when people persecute and falsely attack, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad.” Now, most of us do not respond that way when we are having troubles. We do not jump up and down and click our heels and celebrate. But Jesus said that is how excited we should be. Why? Because we have a great reward in Heaven waiting for us! There is profit in chastening. If we endure the pain now, we get the profit later.

God brings pain and suffering into our lives because He loves us too much to let us sit back and expect people to take care of us. There is a mindset common in our country that says, “People owe me something. I’m just here to get what I can get. I deserve all I want.” The only thing we deserve is to die and go to Hell. Anything else is only the result of God’s grace and mercy. As a result of that spirit of entitlement, we have lost the work ethic that our parents and grandparents had; the idea that if you wanted to get ahead, you had to roll up your sleeves and get to work. The old farmers said, “The best place to pray for corn is at the end of a hoe handle.”

You cross a boundary into a new level of maturity in your life when you can sincerely look to the Lord as He allows suffering and say, “Thank you, Father.” If you are not being hypocritical about it, but mean it sincerely, then you have reached that level. The principle that we profit through pain is hard to learn in the classroom; instead God brings us into crisis. It is hard to gain this truth from academics; instead God brings us into adversity. And if we learn this truth, then we gain the reward that comes to those who endure chastening.