Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Love Through Discipline
“Love Through Discipline”
By Zach Wood
Hebrews 12:11, “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.”
We all know that discipline makes us stronger and teaches us
to learn to do what is right. However,
none of us enjoys going through discipline.
Every one of us has had different experiences in our childhood and adolescent
years with discipline. We have all been
raised in different ways and have had various experiences with this. When we become parents, we often find it hard
to deal with discipline and exactly what we should do in certain
situations. We are constantly learning
as parents.
God needs to discipline us just as we discipline our
children. He loves us and knows exactly
what we need to grow and become stronger as His children. As parents, we don’t enjoy giving discipline,
especially when we get angry with them.
Every parent I know has had terrible moments when they “blow up” at
their children. None of us are perfect
at parenting, but we learn and we grow.
We continue to try to discipline the best we can and show our kids we
love them no matter what.
I am always amazed, no matter how many times I mess up
getting frustrated with my girls, that they keep coming to tell me how much
they want to be with me and how they love me.
Man, talk about melting daddy’s heart!
They do come to understand that they need to learn and re-learn. For us as well, with God’s discipline, we have
to learn and re-learn, just as our kids do. God loves us and wants the best for
us, and so He has to discipline us. He
does this because He loves us and knows it will make us stronger.
The pain from discipline will make us stronger as we
continue to live our lives for Him.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Give Him Praise
“Give Him Praise”
By Zach Wood
Psalm 100- “Shout for
joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship
the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are
his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give
thanks to him and praise his name. For
the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues
through all generations.”
If you take time to read through some of the Psalms, you
will quickly see praises being lifted up to our Almighty God. The Psalms are
full of these passages and they are very uplifting. Sometimes, we just need to read these
passages and be reminded of how great and awesome God really is and His mighty
power.
Whether we are having a good day or a bad day, it is good
for us to bring praise to Him whatever the circumstances. It’s easier when we are having good days and
harder when the bad days come. We tend
to focus on the negative and our frustration often times. But if we remain strong in the Lord and look
past those things to His power and comfort, we can still come before Him with
praise and grow through our hard times.
My favorite part of this passage is the last verse where we
see that God’s love endures forever and that His faithfulness is
never-ending. That is comfort and an
amazing feeling. It’s so inspirational,
even in the midst of trying times, when I can just be by myself and lift up
praises to Him and focus on Him. I want
to always be mindful of how awesome He is and all that He has done and
continues to do for me.
Have you come before Him with joyful songs in your heart and
in complete praise? He truly deserves
our adoration and praise.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures
forever!
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