CHURCH DISCIPLINE 90% of church discipline should be self discipline. Our list of sins should be short and when we fail, we need to immediately repent, confess and grow to be more like Christ through it. Sure, we have blind spots and some sins easily beset us and those are the times where I am so thankful for Godly men and women who exercise Matthew 18 in love and come to a brother and say, hey, what you said was really hurtful or Your doctrine here is not right or Your attitude is coming off as sarcastic and offensive (Ive heard that one from caring believers on occasion...thank the Lord, because I sometimes miss it). Between self discipline and one on one discipleship, that should cover 99% of our mess ups. Very rarely do we have to move on with the higher, more public levels of discipline, but sadly, that is all a lot of people think about when they think of Church Discipline. It should only ever get to that point when there is a completely rebellious heart in fellow believer. May we get it right in the area of self discipline and Godly one on one confrontations so that we never get to that point in our lives. The reason for discipline is so that, as Christians, we will be more like Christ. Christlikeness should be our goal! (That encompasses a lot of things: Love, purity, holiness, humility, etc.) The other goal is the witness of the sanctification of the church before the world. It is a testimony issue. If we fail to confront a brother who is publicly living in sin and/or teaching false doctrine, we de-incentivize the whole church to live disciplined lives and that is a terrible testimony to the world. Pleasing our Master SHOULD be enough incentive to live holy lives, but some sins are very entangling and knowing we belong to a church where we will be lovingly confronted with our sin adds even more motivation to self discipline. Sadly, too many churches wait until it is a major public offense before doing anything about it and by then, the cancer of sin has spread to the whole church and beyond. The most harsh and effective church discipline I see in the Bible is when Ananias and Sapphira lied to God in Acts 5. God used this as an example, not that we should strike people dead who mess up, but that God takes the purity of His church very seriously. Interestingly, the result was And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number (verse 14). We should never hate discipline; personally, I love it because it motivates me to please my Lord and live a life that is holy, set apart for His use. Bill Itzel
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:31:28 +0000
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