THE ROD OF GOD
“He who spares his rod hates his son,
But he who loves him disciplines him promptly” Proverbs 13:24

Rod serves to discipline and correct a child by a loving father. A child without correction may be a bastard or unloving child to the parents. From the view of the Word of God, disciplining a child with a rod is an expression of love and care of a parent towards a child. “But he who loves him disciplines him promptly” Proverbs 13:24

As an earthly father corrects his children, so it is applicable to the heavenly Father – God. When you become born again through genuine repentance and forsaking your sinful lifestyle, you become a loving child of God, and He becomes your heavenly loving Father. Now as a loving and responsible Father, He has the responsibility of correcting you when you mistakenly of deliberately err.

God uses rod to correct and comfort His children. Psalm 23:4, “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Correction Of God By Rod
“If they break My statutes
And do not keep My commandments,
32 Then I will punish their transgression with the rod,
And their iniquity with stripes.
33 Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him,
Nor allow My faithfulness to fail.” Psalm 89:31-33

When we break God’s rule and displease Him, in His loving-kindness, He does not abandon us, but rather correct us by His rod. This rod can come in form of physical or spiritual discipline, all at the aim of drawing us back to the right path in God. If God should leave us without discipline, it means we are abandoned by Him and we would be judged and condemned with the world, it means we are at the mercy of Satan.

God corrects His children by rod through several means and methods so that we may not be lost forever with the bastard world.

“And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”

7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:5-11

What To Do In God’s Discipline:

1. REALIZE – When the Lord is correcting or disciplining us, the first thing we are to do is to realize ourselves – where we have gone wrong and sinned against God. “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” Psalm 51:3.

2. REPENT – Realizing one’s sin without repentance is a real waste of time. Immediately we realize something wrong, we must promptly repent from those sins. Repenting means turning away from one’s ways into God’s way, forsaking the usual sinful life immediately.

3. RENEW – After we repent from the wrong way and error or any sin we found ourselves, we must separate from those things and renew our commitment to God in His word, will and work. We must be prayerful and watchful not to allow such error or sin to overtake us again.

“Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” Hebrews 12:12, 13

Comfort Of The Rod of God
“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4

When God discipline us through His rod, we have comfort:
1, that God still loves us. “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Hebrews 12:6

2, that God still receive us as His children even though we erred. “And scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:6

3, that God’s corrections in our lives will lead to greater blessings – spiritually and physically. When we endure God’s discipline and take to His corrections, it will lead to our profit.

“Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11.

Warning!
We must not ignore or run away from God’s rod of correction or chastening, because God will not continue to strife with a man or correct him forever. Those who continuously reject correction from God will be rejected by Him at the end, and He will leave them to a reprobate hearts to continue to do sinful things without correction from Him again. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” Romans 1:28

This is the reason there are many “once upon a time” children of God and ministers who now continuously go deeper in sin, worldliness and disobedience to God as if they never experienced genuine salvation before, but because they rejected God’s correction, so they become abandoned and spiritually debased.

When the Spirit of God corrects us through any means, we must quickly realize, repent and renew our lives to God before it gets too late.

Revelation 3:19-22
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

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