Conference yukon::christian

    To Pray for you personally or for the world in general?
    
    
    Jill

Great prayer, Tony.  He will be honored by it, and will answer it.

And though you are sure to love the final results, it is almost as sure that
you won't like a whole lot of the process.  But you can't get one without the
other.

Fasten your seat belt.

Paul

      Hi Jill,
    
        I'm kind'a confused!
    
      Hi Paul,
    
        Yeah, I was laying in bed knowing deep down I really want 
        it, but at the same time acknowledging to God that I hate
        pain and in ways I don't want it.  Sort of like, "Make me
        willing to be willing."
    
        I think its time.  Its time to plead for chastening.  Whom
        the Lord loves He chastens.  Lets allow Him to show His love
        in that way.  Painful though it be, but oh the peaceable 
        fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it!
    
    						Tony

     From a personal point of view, I  think I'd rather pray for
     the heart, mind, and will to be faithful and obedient. Let
     God decide if I need chastisement, or perhaps comforting. If
     I am doing wrong, I'd rather pray for forgiveness and the 
     fortitude to stop doing wrong, if I am not doing what I should,
     then I'd rather pray for the wisdom to know what is right and
     the fortitude and will to do it. Pray for the end goal - to be
     a true and faithful servant reflecting the glory of God. Somehow
     it seems odd to pray for punishment. The goal of chastising a child
     isn't to chastise them, it is for them to change their behavior.
     Can you change it because you love the Lord and not because you will
     be punished for disobedience?

     Leslie

      Hi Leslie,
    
        I see chastening differently than you seem to.  You seem
        to see it as a punishment for doing wrong?
    
        The chastening I refer to is the gradual process of God
        revealing to us our sinful state.  The 'punishment' is
        inherent.  It is a result of simply seeing, to greater
        clarity, who you are.                       
    
        I am referring to pleading for the willigness to allow
        God to show me my sinfulness at a more rapid pace.  This
        is a painful process.  Not because God has to punish us,
        but because repentance requires cognizance of one's sin
        in the first place and seeing one's sin hurts.
    
    						Tony

    I agree with Leslie.  Chastening in this sense sounds like you want
    parental abuse because it's the only love you know.  God doesn't treat
    His true children like that.

    Tony there is one very important factor here, that is your spouse.In
    order for you to have a more chastening life style.It would not only be
    fair and more honest but also easier to have and GIVE support to one
    another.Other wise it brings about alot of negative feelings due to
    confussion..
                                               G.B.
                                               Rob
                        

      Hi Rob,
    
        Thanks!
    
      Hi Mike,
    
        Heb 12:11
        Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but
        grievous; neverthless afterward it yields the peaceable
        fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained
        by it.
    
        See also 12:5-6.
    
        Mike, regarding myself in this matter, you haven't a clue
        as to what you are talking about.
    
        The Bible uses the word chastening in the context of an
        experience that produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
        Thus, it must follow, that chastening is a partial experience
        of being made righteous by grace working through faith (for
        there is no other way).
    
    						Tony

Hi Tony,

Excuse me if I say that asking for chastening sounds like putting the cart
before the horse.  Or rather, the journey before the destination.  Divine
chastening is never an end in itself, but only a means to an end.  To ask
for chastening, pure and simple, is like asking to ride in a vehicle, and
not caring where it is going - the objective is getting to where it will
land; not in being propelled through the air! 

Now if your hunger was for a deeper love for the LORD, and a more faithful
walk in His presence, achieving this _could_ involve chastisement, as He
showed you areas in your life that are hindering its progress.  In receiving
the chastising, you may feel, through the distress and pain, the relief of
separation / release from some measure of evil, but the chastising per se
is not something to seek in its own right, or else it would be present in
heaven... ! ;-} 

To focus on chastisement itself, as something you are actively seeking
sounds dangerous.  Not because the LORD would harm you through it, but
because of the mental perspective.  Mike has pointed out one - that a
neglected child can actually seek attention via punishment (eg: if God is
teaching us to walk by faith rather than sight, to look for the attention 
of chastisement is a sign of immaturity rather than of maturity).  Another
danger is that the chastisement can be viewed as a sort of 'earning merit',
quietly creeping into a salvation (or at least, sanctification) by works
situation. 

�        See also [Hebrews] 12:5-6.
    
Discipline is part of the parental responsibility, but how excited wopuld 
you be if, when you were a small child, your father said "As it's your
birthday, I'm going to give you a special treat.", and swished his cane
through the air...? 

However if one of my children had misbehaved in his youth, when they were 
old enough, I would explain that they were having a spank to help them to 
be a better person, and know how to behave.  They wouldn't enjoy the 
spank, but would be aware that it demonstrated that I loved and cared for 
them in a very special way, rather than merely expressing as personal 
reaction; that I did not like hurting them, and would only chastise enough 
for them to learn, and not to suffer for its own sake.  I have known them 
to be grateful _after_ completion of the chastising.

�        The Bible uses the word chastening in the context of an
�        experience that produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
�        Thus, it must follow, that chastening is a partial experience
�        of being made righteous by grace working through faith (for
�        there is no other way).
    
ie - chastening is never an end in itself.  _Righteousness_ is what you 
want, even if the means to be used at your current stage happens to be 
chastisement.  Let God choose the means!

					God bless
							Andrew

      Hi Andrew,
    
        Thanks for your reply.
    
        I feel as though one very fundamental thing is being missed.
        Andrew, you referred to an example of giving a child a 
        spanking.  This is a punishment that is not inherent to the
        seeing of sin.
    
        I believe the scriptural meaning of chastening is receiving
        a deeper measure of God's grace (revelation) which exposes
        our sinfulness.  The 'punishment' comes from seeing our sin-
        fulness to a greater degree.  See for example Isaiah 6.  Isaiah 6
        is exactly what I am referring to.
    
        I don't believe God 'caned' Isaiah.  I believe Isaiah, as a 
        result of seeing God's glory much more fully, saw his sinfulness
        correspondingly much more fully.  The result of seeing his
        sinfulness was painful.  This was the chastening.  He fell down
        and said, "Woe is me for I am undone!"   A result of this process
        was receiving a cleansing coal from above.
    
        Was that a result of a 'caning' from God?  Or was it a result 
        of seeing God's love more clearly?
    
        I am simply talking about desiring to see God's goodness more
        and more and, in the process, being shown my heart more and 
        more and (hopefully) having the "Woe is me for I am undone!"
        experience more and more.  Not to feel pain for pain's sake, 
        but to have a deeper realization of the exceeding sinfulness
        of sin so as to be constrained to repent (by God's grace).
    
        I believe God has laid this burden in my heart.  I believe we
        often suppress God by suppressing the chastening He so wants
        to give us.  Its a natural process that is inherent in the
        realities of sin and righteousness and that produces the 
        peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have had the
        experience of Isaiah, the experience of beholding from glory
        to (more) glory.
    
        But, I do agree most emphatically that chastening is a means to
        an end which is a righteous heart and which is exactly what I
        want to be more and more willing to have.
    
        On the following we may see things differently.  Chastening, as
        the Bible uses it, is absolutely essential to the process of
        being made righteous.  It is impossible to be made righteous 
        outside of chastening.
    
        I think we suppress it because the natural man is selfish and 
        seeks to avoid pain even if the end result is a more sanctified
        heart.
    
    						Tony
              

    The A.H. dictionary says:
    
    chasten - 1) to punish, discipline; 2) to restrain, moderate;
              3) to refine, purify.
    
    The popular contextual usage of this word is #1.  Rarely do we hear #3
    and it seems I forgot that it existed.  Maybe part of the problem is
    not knowing about #3.

      Hi Mike,
    
        I am convicted that quite often the Bible uses words and
        gives them a meaning that may even be unlike a dictionary's.
    
        A good example is the decriptions in the book of Lamentations.
        Or Psalm 11 (I think it is) where God is described as just/
        judging/full of wrath and the lost are then described as
        bearing exclusively inherent penalty.  (We would have expected
        some noninherent retribution, but its just not there.)
    
        I actually don't resort to english dictionaries much at all,
        but rather do word studies and placing a bunch of common
        texts together seems to have the effect of having a scripturally
        intended definition for a word emerge from those many texts.
    
    						Tony

 I looked up the word in Strongs and Vine's Bible dictionary and while there
 are a couple variations, it appears that training/discipline is the prime
 usage of the word in the New Testament.


 
 Jim

      Hi Jim,
    
        Without a Bible handy, the two texts that I am most aware
        of are Psalm 73 and Hebrews 12.
    
        Psalm 73 is the plight of Asaph who basically complains
        about the chastening experience.  He links it to sanctification.
        He complains about the wicked not having this same painful
        ordeal and (instead) seeming to have it real easy.  However,
        he states that when he looked into the sanctuary, he under-
        stood.
    
        What I believe he understood was that the lost would see all
        of God's glory all at one shot instead of going from glory
        to glory.  This would reveal a full sense of one's sinful-
        ness and be too much to bear.
    
        Then Asaph understood.
    
        Hebrews is an exhortation for a corporate body to go all
        the way.  Enter into that perfect rest.  Partake of more than
        milk (solid food).  Go on unto perfection.  The chastening
        verses are followed by a description of the experience of
        seeing the unveiled glory of God - Mount Zion.  This is
        where anything that can be shaken will be shaken and where
        our God is a consuming fire.
    
        This then has commonality with Psalm 73.
    
        Chastening is a prerequisite to the preparation of the last
        generation.  It is part of the dynamic involved in the
        experience of being made righteous by grace working through
        faith.
    
    						Tony
                      

I took your desire, Tony, not as a specific desire for pain or punishment.  I
agree with several writers that there is nothing beneficial in asking for
pain itself.  I took it as a permission of sorts.  And THAT is what I was
responding to with joy.

So often, our prayers are so me-centered, and are about short-term pleasure.
"Lord, make me happy, solve my financial worries, give me health, solve my
problems," etc, etc.  Not that these things are bad - God delights to give
good gifts to His children.  But they are rather limited and short-term, and
are about ME, and about avoidance of pain, instead of about the Kingdom and
about Jesus.

I took your prayer for chastening as a prayer saying "Lord, do whatever you
have to do in my life to make me into the person you want me to be, to make
me more useful for the advancement of your Kingdonm.  I accept with gratitude
anything and everything that involves, regardless of whether it is painful or
not."  It is not a prayer FOR pain, but it is a prayer that specifically puts
Jesus and the Kingdom ahead of the avoidance of pain.  And THAT is a prayer
that God simply delights in.

He'll answer it too.  He led me to pray like that about four years ago.  The
resulting four years have been the hardest and most painful - and at the same
time the very best - years of my life.  I've lost much of what I valued in
this life.  And I have gained far more in the richness of my relationship
with Him.

So though your original articulation may have sounded like you were asking
for pain, I know exactly what you are talking about, and I rejoice with you
that He has led you to this place.

Paul

Hi Tony,

You misread me.  If you took it in context, you would see that the point of
the example of spanking a child was not just 'punishment', but rather a
discipline (cf 'discipling').  ie, the emphasis was on constructive tuition
- _that_ aspect of chastising.  The main purpose of a 'spanking' is to help
the child to recognise the sin which precipitated it. 

By claiming that you are asking for Isaiah's experience, and
differentiating between that and the child's experience of being chastised,
you are effectively denying the relevance of Hebrews 12 to your prayer (cf 
vs 6-10).  You can't have it both ways! 

It is very dangerous to re-interpret words used in scripture as meaning 
something other than their normal usage.  They were chosen by translators 
in order to convey the clearest possible meaning to normal users of the 
language.  God writes to all His children; not just for an elete few to 
interpret to them.  I put 'to all His children', rather than to mankind in 
general, because there is the dimension of understanding for which Holy 
Spirit inspiration is required.  

If you meant to ask for a revelation of God's glory, to work in you (more 
like Moses asked in Exodus 33:18, and was answered in Exodus 34:6-7), then 
you should choose the words carefully to convey the meaning!  Meanwhile, 
you can rest assured that God knew you weren't really asking for a caning, 
but rather meant a revelation (eg Romans 8:26)! ;-)

				God bless
						Andrew

      Hi Paul,
    
        You understand my desire PRECISELY with the possible exception 
        that I do not know my heart and what is the REAL language of it 
        and also while I ultimately seek righteousness, I admit to some
        focus on chastening particularly because my present discernment
        is that this is what I especially need for the 'end product'
        which is to be like Jesus.
    
        Thanks by the way!
    
      Hi Andrew,
    
        I'm really not trying to disagree for the sake of disagreeing!
    
        ;-)
    
        I see it as (as i said) fundamental to understand that the pain
        of chastening is the seeing of one's own sinfulness to a deep-
        ening degree.  This is inherent pain, pain inherent to sin 
        itself.  Sin being the actual stinger.
    
        Your description of spanking is a noninherent one.  Yes, it may
        serve a good purpose, but they are two very different things.
        It would be one thing for Susan Smith to receive a whack in
        her behind for killing her two sons.  It would be quite another
        for the glory of God to fully illuminate in her heart a naked
        revelation of the evil of her heart that did such a thing 
        coupled with the knowledge that it is *her* heart!
    
        For me the difference here is so substantial that further 
        dialogue on chastening where your posture would be to insist
        that the two are insignificantly different would be entirely 
        fruitless for me!  (Just being honest and candid.)
    
    					Take Care and God Bless,
    
    						Tony