We are to live in a state of readiness before the Lord. This is part of our growing up in God and maturing as believers. To assist us we are strengthened and covered by a great cloud of witnesses from the heavenly realm. This great company surrounding us includes those who have gone on before us, as well as other angelic forces that God provides to cover us and care for us constantly. Therefore, since we have this great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, we are to lay aside every weight and “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).[1] We are to lay aside every encumbrance: our fears, our lack of understanding, and our wrong paradigms about ourselves that would make us incapable of being free to walk into what the Lord has for us.
We must be free within ourselves to do the will of God and to move in His will with nothing restraining us. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). We want to fix our eyes on Yeshua (Jesus) “the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:2–3). We are to remember the exhortation that is addressed to us as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES” (Hebrews 12:5–6).
These verses are preparing us for the days ahead. We are to look at Yeshua and what He lived through, what He suffered in going to the cross. He despised the shame, but He endured; and we will endure that which we have to endure as God’s sons in these days. We will not grow weary, and we will not lose heart. Whatever we have suffered, we have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in our striving against sin (Hebrews 12:4). We have not gone through what Christ went through. No one else has been to that level of resisting wickedness or suffering the pain that Christ suffered in preparation for the cross. So Yeshua is our example and the One we follow. We can look to Him.
Remember, Christ Himself was made perfect by the things that He suffered. Likewise, the discipline of the Lord is part of our growth; it is part of our maturing and growing in God. His discipline of you comes because of His great love for you and His determination that you will be a son to Him. So stand up before the Lord, hold Him before your face, and receive what God is working within you through His discipline. God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
God deals with each one individually. We may suffer persecution and go through things, but we will not faint or lose heart. Our Father is disciplining us because He is making us grow, making us mature, and bringing us into a place of walking as sons with Him. He does this so that we may share in His holiness and not be shamed out of His presence because of our lack of preparation.
Listen to this entire message: GIG178 A Time of Shaking
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).