While you have the light, believe in the light . . . - John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than ever before, and we say, "I feel fit for anything; if only I could always be like this!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of insight which we have to live up to even when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for the everyday world when we are not on the mountaintop. Yet we must bring our everyday life up to the standard revealed to us on the mountaintop when we were there.
Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate. Don’t place yourself on the shelf by thinking, "How great to be in such a wonderful state of mind!" Act immediately—do something, even if your only reason to act is that you would rather not. If, during a prayer meeting, God shows you something to do, don’t say, "I’ll do it"—just do it! Pick yourself up by the back of the neck and shake off your fleshly laziness. Laziness can always be seen in our cravings for a mountaintop experience; all we talk about is our planning for our time on the mountain. We must learn to live in the ordinary "gray" day according to what we saw on the mountain.
Don’t give up because you have been blocked and confused once—go after it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by an act of your own will. Never change your decisions, but be sure to make your decisions in the light of what you saw and learned on the mountain.
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Read: Hebrews 12:1-11
No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. —Hebrews 12:11
Bible In One Year: 1 Samuel 30-31; Luke 13:23-35
In our city's largest public school district, any student who gets caught with a weapon or drugs on campus faces mandatory expulsion. The director of discipline can expel a student immediately. But he also frequently takes the offender through an intense 90-minute session designed to force the student to come to grips with his destructive behavior. Many young adults, looking back, have said that without the director's confrontation they would have ended up in jail.
Discipline! No one likes it, but we all need it. And because God loves us as His children, He never skimps on our spiritual training. Instead of a quick slap on the wrist, our correction may include the agonizing experience of being confronted with who we are and why we behave the way we do. Hebrews 12 summarizes the process with refreshing honesty: "No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (v.11).
We are told not to despise the Lord's chastening and not to be discouraged when He rebukes us, because it all flows from His love (vv.5-6). Without God's tough love, where would we be today? —DCM
God is never cruel in His correction.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
God Our Father
Questions Skeptics Ask About The God Of The Old Testament
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