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As I've been memorizing our blog memory verse for this month, it's brought up a few questions in my mind this week. I've thought about the second part of Hebrews 12:1, "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles..."
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I've been doing a lot of "throwing off" over the last few weeks. The end of the semester for an education professor is full of stacks of papers. I've graded Functional Behavior Assessments/Analysis, Behavior Intervention Plans, Pupil Impact Activities, Journals, and Dispositionals. When I get overwhelmed and in the midst of many projects I have messes everywhere. This was the office in our home last week.
Finally, this Wednesday, grades were all turned in and I was able to "throw everything out" that hindered me from enjoying my office loveseat. This was my office yesterday. Unfortunately, the rest of the house is now calling my name!
As I've thought about this section of verse, I've thought about what I've needed to "throw off" in different areas of my life. This has led me to thinking about 3 words. I've asked a few people...
- "What do you think the meaning of 'holy' is?"
- "How are 'purity' and 'holiness' alike?"
- "Is 'discipline' necessary for purity and holiness?"
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I looked up the definitions in the New Unger's Bible Dictionary for "holy" and it said to "see "holiness". So, I did!
.- HOLINESS is a general term used to indicate sanctity or separation from all that is sinful, impure, or morally imperfect; i.e., it is moral wholeness. The term is used with reference to persons, places, and things . Holiness is one of the essential attributes of God's divine nature. It is entire freedom from moral evil and absolute moral perfection. The Scriptures lay great stress upon this attribute of God. .
- PURITY (Grk. hagneia, "cleanness"). Freedom from foreign mixture, but more particularly the temper directly opposite to criminal sensualities, or the ascendency of irregular passions...(2 Cor 6:6; 1 Tim 4:12; 5:2).
- DISCIPLINE is confined to members of the family, and it may be
- preventive, as in the case of the apostle Paul, who was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble (2 Cor 12:7-9);
- corrective, which is the disciplinary moving of the Father against His wayward child for the good of the child;
- enlarging, the object being to "share His holiness," to bring forth the "fruit of righteousness" (Heb 12:11; John 15:2);
- vindicatory, as in the case of Job who vindicated God against the challenge and accusations of Satan that the patriarch did not really love God apart from his family, his possessions, and himself. There is a difference between disciplining and scourging. The latter represents the divine conquering of the human will that the redeemed life may be completely yielded to God (Rom 12:1-2; cf. Heb 12:6).
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I've also thought a lot lately about how I was disciplined growing up... how Steve and I disciplined our children... and how I see young mothers around me disciplining their children... I've pondered about how I discipline myself and how I've seen God discipline me.
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If we keep reading on down to verses 9-11 of Hebrews 12, we read this,
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"Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us,
and we respected them;
shall we not much rather be subject to
the Father of spirits, and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time
as seemed best to them,
but He disciplines us for our good,
that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful,
but sorrowful;
yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."
2 Tim 1:6-7 says,
"For God did not
give us a spirit of timidity,
but a spirit of power,
of love
and of self-discipline."
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Sister, let's be more aware of God's discipline in our lives and let's step it up and use the "self-discipline" that God has given us to "throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us" so that we might share in His HOLINESS!
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