God's Redemptive Care

"Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the Grace of God;  lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and many become defiled." Hebrews 12:15

A very careful following of the Word of God is here enjoined.  It is not enough to have a smattering of Truth and expect the blessing of God.  There is specific instruction given by the writer-theologian.  It is the ministry of 'looking carefully' so that no one falls short of the Grace of God.

What does that mean? The context of the verse gives the answer.  The chapter is filled with powerful teachings about spiritual discipline from God for our good.  Spiritual discipline represents God's redemptive care in my life.

The writer is speaking from the position of one who has come through a great deal of divine discipline.  He knows intimately whereof he speaks.  Divine discipline is the method whereby God instructs those who are His through providentially provided suffering.  The suffering that God graciously ministers to His own is designed to encourage us to move toward Him and to quit the darkness within ourselves and extant in the world.  Spiritual suffering represents God's redemptive care in my life.

This is a blessing for you and me. To often we seek to explain pain and suffering with weak and obfuscating platitudes.  As you well know platitudes do not edify the wounded heart.  Platitudes are stale reminders that the novelty of my suffering bears no likeness to anything else within my accumulated years of experience. God creates novel modes of suffering to stretch by faith.  He is the Author of our faith-process and our faith-growth.  He knows us substantially more than we know ourselves.

Therefore, we do not want to come short of Grace which means to live within the obscurity of the self instead of the light of God. It is to allow the riot of wilfulness to win over my relationship with the Iesous.  It is chronic self-abandonment and self-betrayal that has as its source failure to follow God.

This failure results in an intrinsic spiritual crisis.  The end result of which may become a 'root of bitterness.'  The word 'bitterness' is a Greek Word that means 'poison.'  Warning about bitterness represents God's redemptive care in my life.

Spiritual poison creates misery within the soul of the person.  It may create a root of poison.  Bitterness may embed itself within the personality and create very painful self-harassment that contaminates interpersonal relationships too.  There is no part of life that is not touched by the smarting root of bitterness.  To fall short of the Grace of God is a serious matter.

Severe cognitive and spiritual impairment due to a root of bitterness un-stabilizes the life of the individual.  God does not desire to see the life of anyone destabilized by bitterness over what someone did to you or I in the past.  God wants for you and me to look steadfastly upon the person of the Iesou and deeply consider what he suffered on our behalf.

To look upon the person of the Iesou means that I have come to the place where I know that my healing can only come from God.  Dwelling upon the person of Iesou is my ultimate medication.  He takes away the poison of what has been done to me through others and what I have done to myself and others too.  This means that my confessions to God must be powerfully honest.  I must risk seeing myself daily as one in need of God's redemptive care.

Blessings to you.  

For more information about Dr. Rich and his teaching ministry, please follow his blog and visit his website.