God Disciplines Us Because He Loves Us | Clip from Servant Song V

Now, before we go further, I think that this just has so much to say to every believer today.

There are times when our lives are backsliding. I don't mean that that is your perpetual condition, because if that's your perpetual condition, that's not the description of a

Christian in the Bible, and you really need to reconsider, are you what you claim to be? But even the true believer can drift back into old fillers, and it's as if God gets crowded to the edges of my heart, of my thoughts, and then of my life.

When God finds us in that condition, Hebrews tells us that God will graciously judge us.

He will get our attention. It is God's love that makes Him do this. It is the power of God that makes

Him able to do this. Now, in times like that, if you don't understand what the

Bible says about God's dealing with a drifting child, you will fall prey to the lies that Israel believed, and that is, number one,

I'm so miserable as a Christian because God doesn't care about me anymore. It's not that I blame Him. My heart has been cold.

My life has been divided and sinful, so I understand. God no longer loves me, but that's a lie.

The misery you feel when you sin as a Christian, in part, is proof that God loves you.

Second, we don't respond to the Scripture. We don't read our Bibles anymore on our own, or if we do, we just go through the motions.

We still show up at church, but there's no yearning of the heart. There's no stretching out of the mind. There's no grabbing hold of what's said and responding to it.

We just kind of sit there, unresponsive, and go home, and the reason we are unresponsive is we don't believe that God is able to save us.

He doesn't want to save me, and I don't think He's able to save me. That's obvious. Look how miserable

I am. But the fact that you are miserable, and all your life seems to turn against you when you turn against God, is one of the evidences that God is powerful to save.

Well, we're glad you were able to join us this week for the podcast. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to The Holt Council on your favorite podcast app, and it does help whenever you're able to leave a comment, or a question, or write a review.