Skip to main content

Closing the Gap 11.23.18

By November 23, 2018Daily Devotional

Week 46 Day 5

Pray:

Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.

Read:

Prov. 12:1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.

Reflect:

“Discipline” here is corrective instruction. Who would love that?  The one who has learned to love what is real regardless of what they feel will love it.  There is a delicate balance between dealing honestly with the brute facts of my current situation and also holding on to hope regarding what could yet be true.  It is common to either deny the truth of what is real about my life and my choices or to face that reality honestly and lose hope about ever changing.  This is a false dichotomy; it is not an either-or scenario. I must face the facts of my life as they stand and I can hold on to a real and living hope for what my life can yet be.  A part of this balance is to know that, since I am imperfect in my thinking, feeling, and doing, I will always need corrective instruction.  I will always be “arriving,” but never having “arrived” in this life. Since this is true, I must love correction because it is the path to knowledge, which is truth.  Can a person actually learn to love to be wrong like this? It’s not really about learning to love being wrong, rather it’s about learning to love the truth no matter what path we must take in order to get to the truth.  If I must go through discipline, correction, and humility to get to truth, then I will take that path. You do not have to love everything about the process of getting to the truth. There are parts of discipline that are terribly difficult and no one would choose them if there were another way.  This is about the fact that sometimes there is no other way. We need to face the facts squarely in order to embrace being wrong, so that we can move in the direction of the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The one who “hates” (shuns, avoids) this corrective discipline is said to be “stupid” (Pr. 12:1).  The word is not derogatory here, it is descriptive. It was used to describe an animal, a beast that lives in ongoing unawareness of self and, therefore, is never going to actually change. This is normal for a beast, but not for an image bearer. You are like the beasts in that you are created, but you are also made in God’s image.  You were made to aspire to become like your father in increasing fashion. Live like a child of God, not a beast of the field. Love discipline, love correction, and do so because you love God.

Pray:

(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)

Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.

Leave a Reply