The professing Christian who lacks this disciplining by God is illegitimate. They are not genuine believers. God’s discipline seems quite painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, we must not lost heart in our weariness of the trouble seemingly never ending, but must run this race set before us with our eyes firmly fixed on our Lord Jesus Christ. We follow His example and we will come to the end prepared for eternity.

1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on 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.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3 (NASB)

A huge part of the Lord’s discipline is designed to eradicate within His people a love for this world. How can it be pleasing to God for His people to love the system that despised His Son and killed Him? Yes believers must live the lives God has given them here amidst people who are not His. God uses this to discipline and reprove His people. Unlike the message of many false teachers in our day, sickness, conflict, and trouble are not outward signs of God’s displeasure with a believer, but are, in fact, His work of sanctifying those in whom He delights.

3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:3-6 (NASB)

The “Him” in v. 3 in this passage is Christ. Like the Lord Jesus, genuine believers have experienced the hostility of sinners. Some experience this in forms of violence, but more often it is exclusion or discrimination. However, the writer of Hebrews is telling us that Christ endured and suffered so that believers may not grow weary or fainthearted. How are believers to “not grow weary or fainthearted” when they endure the hostility of the world?

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