Hebrews 12:5 “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
To “chasten” is to train; employing instruction, correction, rebuking, and scourging. Out of love, parents “chasten” their children. The purpose of “chastening” is to direct children’s minds into a certain pattern of thinking and behavior. Without “chastening”, children’s carnal minds guide them onto ruinous paths. Each child is different, some require more “chastening” than others, but all need it to some degree. Our “Lord”, our Heavenly Father, “chasteneth” us because of His love for us. As the Lord chastened Old Testament Israel, in similar manner He chastens us. He always instructs us via the Holy Spirit working in our hearts, via instruction from godly parents, via the written Word of God, and via the preached Word of God. As we begin to deviate from our Lord’s instruction, He always sends warnings into our hearts and by His messengers. He is indeed longsuffering, but their comes a point in which our “Lord” tells us, “if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” (Isaiah 1:20)! If we persistently “refuse” to heed His warning and continue to “rebel” against Him and His authority over us; He will surely exercise both His authority and power over us to scourge us. The design of His scourging is to correct our rebellious attitudes and behaviors; and sometimes it is to hone our Spiritual skills and to strengthen us for impending service to Him. When the scourging has done its job, our “Lord” lovingly embraces us with His Holy Spirit and sooths our wounds and comforts our troubled minds. We must be careful to not think that every bad thing that happens to us is God’s “chastening”, some bad things happen simply because we live in a sinful world and it is a world filled with bad people and bad things. When the scourging part of our Lord’s “chastening” begins, like Old Testament Israel, He makes us to know exactly why it is happening to us; “chastening” would be ineffective without us knowing why. Sometimes the purpose of His “chastening” is to compel us to spend more time in prayer at the “throne of grace” and to spend more time in His Church. Our “Lord” chastens us because of His love for us; we respond to His “chastening” by cheerfully enduring His chastening and lovingly correcting our behaviors.