Producing a Harvest of Righteousness

I finished Jerry Bridge's The Discipline of Grace today and wanted to share what I just read because it so encouraged me. I usually don't do this, but the remainder of this blog is from Jerry Bridge's lips...

"Hebrews 12:10-11 -"Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

God always disciplines us for our good. He knows what is best for each one of us. He doesn't have to debate with Himself over what is most suitable for us. He knows intuitively and perfectly in nature, intensity and duration of adversity that will best serve his purpose to make us partakers of His holiness. He never brings more pain than is needed to accomplish His purpose. As Lamentations 3:33 expresses: For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Returning to Hebrews 12:10 observe how the writer equated our good with becoming more holy. The apostle Paul wrote of a similar manner in Romans 8:28-29 "And we know that all things God works for the good of those who love Him...For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son." To be conformed to the likeness of Christ and to share in God's holiness are equivalent expressions. T hat is the highest good to which a believer can aspire.

That is the design of God in all of adversity and heartache we experience in this life. There is no such thing as random or chance events in our lives. All pain we experience is intended to move us closer to the goal of being holy as He is holy.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time", the writer of Hebrews said. Adveristy comes in many forms: serious illness or injury or death or unemployment, disappointments, humiliations etc. All of these afflictions ARE painful. They have to be to accomplish their intended purpose of pruning away what is unholy in our lives so tha true holy character may be produced. We should admit the pain.

Later on however the hardship, the discipline, the pain produces a harvest of righteousness and peace. The "harvest of righteousness" is equivalent to sharing in His holiness. Discipline, then, is one of the chief means God uses to make us holy. The road marked to holiness is paved with adversity. If we want to be holy, we must expect the discipline of God through the heartaches and disappointments He brings or allows to come into our lives.

The discipline also procudes peace for those who ahve been trained in it and by it. The word trained is the one Paul used in 1 Timothy 4:7 which was borrowed from the athletic word of the day. There will be rest that comes to the believer when we go to be with the Lord but there is also a peace to be enjoyed in this life for those who have learned to endure adversity as the evidence of God's fatherly hand upon them to make them more holy.

Our ultimate hope, is not in maturity of character in this life as valuable as that is, but in the perfection of character in eternity. Looking forward to that time, Paul wrote "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).

It is not that our present hardships aren't painful, we have seen in Hebrews that they are indeed painful, but we need to learn to look by faith beyond the present pain to the eternal glory that will be revealed in us. Remember, the God who disciplines us will also glorify us.

So the discipline of adversity is given to us by God as a means of our sanctification. Our role in this disciline is to respond to it, and to acquiesce whatever God may be doing, even though a particular instance of adversity makes no sense to us. As we do this we will see in due time the fruit of the Spirit produced in our life."