“14 Return, God of Hosts.
Look down from heaven and see;
take care of this vine,
15 the root Your right hand has planted,
the shoot that You made strong for Yourself.
16 It was cut down and burned up;
they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
17 Let Your hand be with the man at Your right hand,
with the son of man
You have made strong for Yourself.
18 Then we will not turn away from You;
revive us, and we will call on Your name.
19 Restore us, Yahweh, the God of Hosts;
look on us with favor, and we will be saved.”
Psalm 89:14-19
—

I must be honest with myself, and I cannot allow any delusion or illusion of personal piety cloud my vision. It is so easy to look at culture and point fingers, just like it is easy to point out the sin of my neighbor. But if I am going to live a life that is ‘square’ with God, a life that is lived in daily repentance, then I cannot afford to be blinded by pride or apathy.

Grace does not provide a blank check to live as I please. God will not refrain from disciplining me just because I claim to love Him. No. As a father disciplines his chiild, because he loves them, God will discipline me when I stray from His will and desire so I can listen to my own flesh. He loves me too much to just let me run my own path to destruction. It is then up to me to choose to listen to the rebuke, seeking His path and accepting His correction, or to ignore it and accept damnation at my own hands.

We see this exchange payed out over and over again with Israel & Judah in the Old Testament. God has given His instruction. The people follow it for a time and then choose their own path. God, in His rich love and justice, draws their hearts back to Him, sometimes through a word from a prophet, sometimes through the sword of an enemy. But He will do His part. Sometimes people respond immediately, as David did when he was confronted by Nathan, sometimes it takes 70 years of exile to turn the hearts of the people back to Him.

However God chooses to get our attention, we must accept it, being thankful for His loving direction and correction. We can hardly GoLove others in the Name of Christ without talking to them about discipline and obedience. They move hand in hand with discipleship, and with the life we receive in Christ. To expect less would be to expect something less than love
from God, which is something He would never give on the pathway of salvation. His love is whole, and cannot be anything but whole. His justice is whole, and likewise cannot be anything but whole. And so His discipline, thankfully, runs the same way. We will respond. It is simply a question of how.