Barefoot Web Design Blog

My wife Missy made this video with my daughter Ellison. I love hearing her talk, and hearing her say “Happy Birthday, Daddy!” is just the coolest. Here it is…

On Mother’s Day, God used a couple of things from his creation to remind me of how He is like a mother to his children (Galatians 3:26; Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35; Luke 8:21). Both of these things happened in the morning, and if I didn’t believe in God, I probably would not even think twice about God speaking to me through these two events. But I really felt like God allowed me to see these things to show me how He is like our mother.

Now, I’m not like some Jesus freak that can just call out to animals and they come running to you, unlike Evan Almighty, who had lots of animals running to Him whenever he called them because of the power and authority that God had given him. Yeah… I’m not powerful. But there were some pretty neat things that happened the morning of Mother’s Day.

The first was when I opened our back door, holding Ellison on my hip, like I usually do in our morning routine. As we walked outside on the back porch, we saw a baby bird in the grass with it’s mother watching over her baby chick, waiting for the right time to feed him/her. And sure enough, when we became quiet and still, the mother bird swooped down to feed her baby chick that was crying out to be fed. I also think the momma bird had reached the point of kicking her little chick out of the nest so that he/she could learn to fly. Nonetheless, this bird was watching over her young chick, and it made me think of how God watches over us, like a mother who watches over their little one. It also reminded me of Matthew 6:25-34, where Jesus teaches his disciples to not worry, but to trust. And what illustration does Jesus use to drive the point home on the faithful provision of God? His own creation! And specifically birds! Check it out…

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? [7] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Oh yes… there are lessons that God teaches us through His creation.

The second event that happened that Mother’s Day morning was on my lonely drive down Fry Rd. that Sunday morning. At one point during that drive, there is farmland on either side of the road, usually with cows doing what cows do best on farms: eating, eating, and more eating. I happened to notice though as I was passing by that there was a mother leading her calves through the field. There were about 4 or 5 calves lined up right behind their mother, following her lead. And this too reminded me of some motherly qualities of God. God leads His children, just like a shepherd leads His sheep. They know His voice, and they listen to Him and follow Him. They are familiar with Him. And in the case of great moms, they are always sacrificing for their children, so that they can be well fed, clothed, cleaned up, fill in the blank… And this is what Christ came to do for us, as He loved us and gave Himself up for us (sacrifice).

Anyways, random and late Mother’s Day thoughts, but just thought I’d share with you all… Cheers!

I finally got around to uploading a few screenshots of some of the things I’ve been working on the last couple of months. For all those who are interested, you can view the screenshots below… Or, you can view them at barefoot-webdesign.com.

I saw this quote this morning on the Gospel Coalition blog…

In one of the most powerful and poetic paragraphs I’ve ever read on human yearning and the hope of the gospel, Cornelius Plantinga (President of Calvin Theological Seminary) writes:

The truth is that nothing in this earth can finally satisfy us. Much can make us content for a time but nothing can fill us to the brim. The reason is that our final joy lies “beyond the walls of this world,” as J.R.R Tolkien put it. Ultimate beauty comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but only through them. These earthly things are solid goods, and we naturally relish them. But they are not our final good. They point to what is higher up and further back…Even if we fall deeply in love and marry another human being, we discover that our spiritual and sexual oneness isn’t final. It’s wonderful, but not final. It might even be as good as human oneness can be, but something in us keeps saying “not this” or “still beyond”…What Augustine knew is that human beings want God…God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though, because of sin, we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what’s behind them. Our inconsolable secret, says C.S. Lewis, is that we are full of yearnings, sometimes shy and sometimes passionate, that point us beyond the things of earth to the ultimate reality of God.

Just saw this video on YouTube, and thought I’d post it here. Scripture repeatedly demonstrates God’s sovereign use of natural disasters in history throughout the world to bring people to repentance and faith through Jesus Christ and the gospel. God is doing that with the hearts of many in Haiti.

I saw this blog post today on the Gospel Coalition Blog, and thought I’d share it with you. Would love to hear what you think…

In light of Paul Tripp coming to Coral Ridge this weekend, I’ve gone back through a lot of my Paul Tripp books–he’s such a huge gift to the church!

In one of his books (co-authored with Tim Lane), How People Change, he identifies seven counterfeit gospels—-”religious” ways we try and “justify” or “save” ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful. Which one (or two, or three) of these do you tend to gravitate towards?

Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”

Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

As I said two weeks ago in my sermon, there are outside-the-church idols and there are inside-the-church idols. It’s the idols inside the church that ought to concern Christians most. It’s easier for Christians to identify worldly idols such as money, power, selfish ambition, sex, and so on. It’s the idols inside the church that we have a harder time identifying.

For instance, we know it’s wrong to bow to the god of power—but it’s also wrong to bow to the god of preferences. We know it’s wrong to worship immorality—but it’s also wrong to worship morality. We know it’s wrong to seek freedom by breaking the rules—but it’s also wrong to seek freedom by keeping them. We know God hates unrighteousness—but he also hates self-righteousness. We know crime is a sin—but so is control. If people outside the church try to save themselves by being bad; people inside the church try to save themselves by being good.

The good news of the gospel is that both inside and outside the church, there is only One Savior and Lord, namely Jesus. And he came, not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so that we might become truly free!

Tullian Tchividjian serves as the Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Tullian is author of the forthcoming, “Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels” (Crossway: May 31, 2010).

As the reality that Layla Grace is now gone from this earth, we are gathering to celebrate the life of sweet Layla Grace.  This girl has had such an impact on me, and I don’t even know her.  I was so extremely sad and heart broken for a number of days after the prayer vigil that we held for her a couple of weeks ago.  I have lots to write about all of this, as I have been putting down lots of thoughts and things that God has been showing me through it all.  But I’m not ready to post anything yet, since I’m not finished.  But I would like to ask you for some prayer on some things…

Prayer for Website

Let me explain…

I have been working behind the scenes with some Lifebridge folks, Ryan Marsh (Layla Grace’s dad), Matt Sanders, and some other folks to put together a website to remember and celebrate Layla Grace. I can’t tell you anything else about it right now until we launch it. But I am asking you to pray for the website…

Laylagrace.org has gotten an incredible amount of visitors due to various celebrities, including Ryan Seacrest, Kim Kardashian, Alyssa Milano, Jenny McCarthy, and others, who have tweeted about Layla Grace. In fact, the numbers for the month are approaching 6 million unique hits! A website with that many visitors can only take so much, depending upon the server the website is hosted on. In the case of laylagrace.org, it’s being hosted on a Virtual Private Server, which normally would be able to handle a large amount of traffic. But in this case, with so many people hearing about Layla Grace’s battle with neuroblastoma cancer, the server is being pushed to the limit of what it can handle. In fact, laylagrace.org has crashed a couple of times, due to the rush of web traffic from tweets posted by Shanna Marsh on Twitter.

So with this new mini website we’re launching to celebrate the life of Layla Grace, it’s an understatement to say that there are going to be lots of people visiting the site. There will literally be thousands of people within the next week that will be visiting the site. And so the need for the site to remain online and not crash is paramount. And not just because we are remembering Layla Grace, but also because so many people are asking the deeper questions about life… things like, “Why would God allow a 2 year old to die of cancer so early?”… or “Why does God allow people to suffer so much?”… or “Why does God seem to turn a blind eye to evil in this world?”… questions that every heart wrestles with. And so we are taking this golden opportunity to communicate answers that we know to be true from God’s Word, truth that gives us hope and encouragement while we live in this sinful, fallen and broken world, where death sometimes reaches your children before you, where the unjust and evil seem to get away with murder, where earthquakes take lives by the thousands, and where hope without truth does not survive. So, Michael Meissner, pastor of Lifebridge church, has put together a couple of blog posts that will help to answer some of those questions that people have, as they hear about Layla’s story. Of course, we don’t know the exact reasons why God has chosen to take away such a precious life, but there are answers that God gives in His word as to why He works this way in the world. So we need your prayers for people to come to faith in Jesus, as they “hear” the gospel through the blog posts. No doubt there are many people who have a concept of God in their own hearts, but many of them have a concept that is made up, and not according to the truth of who God says that He is.

Pray for the Marshes

Ryan and Shanna have been going through a lot, as they have been watching their beautiful daughter suffer while battling cancer. Pray that God would comfort them with His grace. Almighty God is the God of mercies, and God of all comfort. And therefore, He alone is able to comfort them in a way that will help them to not just get by with life and keep living with a wound that makes life less pleasurable, but to grow from this in Christ, and bless others through the suffering and trial that they have been through. It is both for their endurance and joy in the faith, and also for God to use the Marsh’s in comforting others who are going through any affliction in their lives. Pray also that they would be able to echo the words of Job when he said…

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Pray that the Marsh’s would come to know that the God who blesses and gives is the same God who takes away for His glory, and that this truth would lead them to worship God in spirit and truth, with passion and joy. Pray that they would willingly humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He might carry their burden, and lift them up in their time of need. The wounds from God are purposeful and part of His perfect plan.

Pray for God’s Word to Take Root on Good Soil Prepared by God

God’s word falls on many places… sometimes on the path, sometimes on rocky ground, sometimes in the thorns, and sometimes on good soil. But the only place it falls and bears fruit and yields a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty is in the good soil of a heart prepared by God. Therefore, we should pray that the people visiting this site have hearts that are humble to receive the truth from God’s word, and to let the truth change them so that they might turn from their sin and worship the Savior of our souls, Jesus Christ… to have ears that truly hear and understand. He is our greatest need, and without knowing Him, people cannot worship and glorify God as He desires us to. Pray that the man-made lies that people have been believing for so long would be taken captive and destroyed by the light of truth from God’s word, so that people might see and believe.

Pray that God Would Get all the Glory

There are a lot of people that could glory from all of this, but the only one who is worthy of it all is God through Jesus Christ. And so pray that the name of Jesus Christ would be exalted (as it rightly should…) above all names, and that the gospel would be clearly presented without fear and with confidence and clarity of speech. Pray that people would discover the gospel through all technological means: Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, and more. The great thing about technology is it’s ability to carry messages quickly to people around the world. But these message can also be overseen and dismissed within a matter of seconds. Pray that people’s attentions would be captured not just by the story of Layla Grace… that’s just part of it. It’s God’s story that God wants to bring to people’s attention. And I can’t help but think that God has brought this upon sweet Layla Grace to bring many people to Himself.

Stay Tuned

God is doing great things! More will be shared!

Found this sermon from John Piper on Desiringgod.org, and thought it was a good reminder for those of us who tend to worry about tomorrow and struggle with anxiety. The passage he is referring to comes from Matthew 6:25-34.

1. Life Is More Than Food; The Body Is More Than Clothing (v. 25)

Verse 25. I am passing over the reason found in the word “therefore” at the beginning of the verse and going straight to the reason found in the last part of the verse: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. [Here comes the reason] Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

I take this to mean, since life can’t be sustained without food and the body will freeze, or be shamed into oblivion without clothes, Jesus must mean: life and body (literally “soul” and body) are more than the physical life that is sustained by food and adorned by clothing. In other words, don’t be anxious about your soul and your body because those who might take your food and your clothing, and even cause your death, cannot take your real life or rob you of your resurrection body. The bottom line defense against anxiety is: in Christ you are immortal, and to die is gain. That’s why Jesus says in Luke 12:4, “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.” In other words, there is something far worse than death, and it can never happen to you in Christ. So don’t be anxious.

2. You Are More Valuable Than the Birds That God Feeds (v. 26)

Verse 26: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Here the argument not to be anxious has two massive premises leading to the conclusion. Premise one: God is so completely in control of the natural universe that he may be said to feed the birds of the air. Every berry eaten or insect snatched form the air or worm pulled from the ground is provided by God. He does that for birds. Premise two: you are of more value to God than they. God values more and is more committed to his people who glorify him with their minds and wills than he is to animals who have no ability to consciously glorify God. As Peter says in 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” Vastly more than for the birds whom he feeds. So don’t be anxious.

3. Anxiety Accomplishes Nothing (v. 27)

Verse 27: “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

Here is a simple, practical argument: anxiety does no good. It accomplishes nothing. It doesn’t help. Preach this to yourself: I am accomplishing nothing helpful by this anxiety. It is only making a hard situation harder. I will listen to Jesus and say no to this useless emotion. I refuse to be mastered by a useless emotion!

4. The Grass and the Lilies That God Clothes Last for a Day, But You Are Eternal (vv. 28-30)

Verse 28-30: “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

This is almost the same as the argument from the birds of the air. But not quite. The point there was that you are more valuable than the birds that God feeds. The point here is that you are eternal, and the grass and the lilies last for a day. Yet God clothes them more beautifully than Solomon. Again the most amazing truth for us is the truth that Jesus virtually takes for granted: God’s sovereign rule over the world of nature extends to the seemingly insignificant color of a lily and the white puff-ball of a clover patch. These are not mere natural laws that God put in motion and set loose to do good or bad things with no control over them. These are his doing.

And the inference for our souls is: if God is so intimately and lavishly involved with grass and flowers which are like a vapor, then how shall he not care for his children who are eternal? So trust him! Trust him! “O you of little faith.” The issue is trust. Anxiety is a trust issue (verse 30). Trust your Father. Come what may, he will take care of you.

5. Anxiety Is Worldly (v. 31)

Verse 31: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things.”

Here the argument is: if you are anxious, you are like the world. This is what people do who don’t know God. Anxiety is worldly.

Be careful that you not become cynical at this point and say, “Piper you are naive. You think you can dispel this monster so easily. Just remind us that the world is anxious. That will help?”

To which I say: These are not my words. These are the words of the Son of God. These are his prescription, not mine. Be careful lest you speak ill of Christ. He is not naive. He knows the monster of anxiety better than you do. And he knows best how to fight it. And it is a fight. That is why he is multiplying weapons for you. Sometimes one will work and sometimes another. Don’t blow these off. Put them in your armory. The very one you mock might someday save your life. Don’t be anxious about things. The Gentiles do that.

6. Your Heavenly Father Knows What You Need (v. 32b)

Verse 32b: “And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”

The argument is: Don’t be anxious because you have Father; he is “heavenly” not earthly; and he knows exactly what you need. “Father” means he loves you and you are on his heart as a child. “Heavenly” means he is sovereign over all the earth and nothing can stop him from doing good to you. “He knows that you need them” means that he is never at a loss to know what is good for you and he has all the wisdom it takes to meet your need. So rest in this: Your heavenly Father knows what you need.

7. God Will Supply Everything You Need to Do His Will and His Righteousness (v. 33)

Verse 33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The argument is God will supply everything you need to do his will and his righteousness. Yes he promises that some of us will be imprisoned and that some of us will be beaten and some of us will be killed. Paul says in Romans 8 that famine and nakedness will come for some, but will not separate us from the love of Christ. In all these things we will be more than conquerors through him who loved us. We will have all the clothing and food and drink that we need to do the will of God, including his time when his will is for us to die. There is no guaranteed physical comfort in this world, no guaranteed life on earth. But no trial will befall you for which he will not give you all you need to endure to the end and be saved.

8. God Does Not Overload Any Day with Trouble (v. 34)

Verse 34: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

The argument is that God does not overload any day with trouble. Each day has its appointed amount. So don’t reach into tomorrow and bring its troubles into today. The comforting point is unsaid, but obvious: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Each day has its own appointed troubles, and there are new mercies appointed for us every day so that you can bear the troubles. Trust him they will be there.

These eight arguments are a gift to you from the Lord Jesus to free you from anxiety and to make you a generous giver. If you will receive him as Savior and Lord and Treasure of your life, you will have his promises with him. Receive them. Believe them. Make them the means by which you fight the good fight of faith every day. We are walking into grave days. One group of people more than all others should be free from anxiety: the people of Christ.

Found a link today that’s worth reading for anyone wondering if the Bible is actually the word of God, and therefore, without error. It also explains why the Bible is proclaimed as the word of God, and how important this doctrine is to the health of the church.

It was written by Williams Evans, who writes for the Online Magazine for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, which is found at http://www.reformation21.org.

The article is titled A Layman’s Historical Guide to the Inerrancy Debate. Would love to hear your thoughts on it…

I just found out that a parent of one of my students at Warner Elementary was diagnosed with breast cancer. I wanted to send her some encouragement. I was searching for a post on Facebook that I had written awhile back, but for the life of me, could not find! So, I decided to look in the Drafts, just to see if maybe I had written it, but just never posted it to Facebook. And sure enough, there it was… So anyways, this post explains what God’s purpose is in the difficult experiences we must face in life, as explained by God in His Word, which is truth. Even though God doesn’t always give us the answer to our “Why?!” questions, He does tell us His purpose in causing or allowing these difficult times to happen in our lives.

I think you might be a completely insane, lunatic if you said that you actually enjoy affliction, trials, and hardship. None of it is pleasant. And yet, God commands (yes, that’s right… commands!) us to rejoice in the midst of it because He is behind it, and using it for His glory (James 1:2-4). And He is not a God that “willingly afflicts or grieves the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:33)

So what is God’s purpose in all of these things?

God’s Purpose in Affliction

When things are difficult in life, and you’re left with nothing but questions, God does have a purpose in your affliction. He may not give you the exact answers to why it’s in your life (He usually never does), but nonetheless, it is ordained by the sovereign plan and wisdom of God for His purposes and glory. In 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, God gives us a reason for the affliction He brings into our lives.

Read this verse…

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Why does God allow us to be afflicted?

“…who comforts us in all our affliction, SO THAT we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

God causes or allows affliction in our lives so that He will be magnified in being both the comforter of our affliction, and so that through His comfort experienced in the midst of our affliction, we may be able to comfort others who are in any affliction.

So, it’s twofold… 1. His purpose is to glorify His name in proving Himself to be the Father of mercies and God of all comfort in the midst of our affliction. And 2. His purpose in comforting you in your affliction is so that you will then comfort others who are in any affliction with the comfort that you’ve received from God in your own affliction.

The truth is that everyone’s experience of affliction via circumstance, pain, or suffering may be different from someone else’s. But one’s ability to comfort another person in their affliction does not depend on that person having gone through the same experience, but rather from experiencing God’s comfort in affliction.

When you go through difficult times, it often feels like you’re the only one going through it, but God assures us in His word that it’s for His glory, our comfort, and for the comfort of others who are afflicted.

God also commands us to rejoice in our affliction. Knowing that God is purposeful in the affliction we experience helps us to continue to walk by faith, and to keep rejoicing in Him who works all things together for His perfect and pleasing will.

God’s Purpose in Trials

“Uhh, what?!” you may be asking. “How in the world am I supposed to rejoice in the midst of my hardship and affliction?”

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

Why does God command us to rejoice in the midst of trials?

Because just like God’s purpose in our affliction is to reveal His comfort and grace so that we might be able to comfort others with God’s comfort, God’s purpose in trials is to test our faith, which produces steadfastness or endurance. Again, here’s another reason that God gives us on why we experience trials, hardship, and affliction. His trials will make our faith more durable so that His light will shine brighter in the midst of affliction and hardships, as the world witnesses our response to those trials in faith and trust. As we grow to learn that God’s trials are purposeful for the steadfastness of our faith, He will be glorified in our rejoicing in those trials. God is more glorified in our rejoicing of trials that He brings, rather than our complaining of the hardship we experience as a result of God’s trials.

God’s Purpose in Hardship

God is purposeful in the hardship that He brings into our lives.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:3-11

So, Paul reminds us that we are to consider hardship as the discipline of God. If God did not discipline us, then we would be illegitimate children and not sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

So, hardship should first remind us of God’s love for us as His children, not wanting us to stray into disobedience and a life of sin.

What is the purpose of God’s discipline?

“but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.”

At first glance, we may not understand what “sharing his holiness” means. But if we look a little further in the text, God gives us the answer in v.14 – “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

So God’s purpose in hardship to remind us that we are His children, and as a loving Father disciplines His children to keep them from going astray from what is right and good and true, God discplines for our good so that we may share his holiness, or so that we may see Him more clearly. It also yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. It yields righteousness when we are trained by it, and understand that it comes from God for His purpose and good in our lives, but if we do not understand, the devil can try to convince us to despise His discipline in our lives, which would not yield the fruit of righteousness, but instead an attitude of bitterness towards our loving Father, instead of loving submission and trust in the sovereign will of God.

All of these things–affliction, trials, hardship–God purposefully uses in our lives so that we might glorify Him more. None of them are too pleasant, but when we realize that God is using them for His glory and for our good, by His grace working within us, we will learn to submit to them with a joyful, patient and trusting heart, rather than despising God for bringing it into our lives.