No Pain – No Gain…
2 Peter 1:5-8 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whenever I see this Scripture I am reminded of the exercise of stair climbing.
And this week putting up Christmas decorations has REMINDED me of exercise! I have been up and down stairs to get everything I need in one place, I have been up and down ladders to put things in place, and I have been doing squats and weight lifting and stretching to fill the places … and now… I have the painful reminder of muscles that are not trained nor kept in condition.
I have also been reminded that I EXPECT exercise to produce PERMANENT results! How dare my body betray me by causing me pain and anguish when I have given my all to make me happy, healthy and wise! Well.. happy for sure… some other things just aren’t worth the pain in order to gain!
Hey! Don’t get all judgmental on me… y’all make your choices too!
As I was whining to Nikki about the pains of the seasons… she reminded me (thanks girl!) that I was the one who DEMANDED (did not… did too) to have Christmas at my house. Ok… OK! I get it! Anything worth doing is worth the cost… after all… it is a law of nature that there is cause/effect for everything under the sun. And because we, mankind, decided our self was the most important “god”… ALL of creation groans! NO pain – NO gain!
Well… if God loves us… why doesn’t He just…
Fill in the blank, but the real answer we want is for Him to make us happy, healthy and wise NO MATTER WHAT! Give us this day… our way. Make our mistakes go away and let no evil consequences befall our life plan. Build our kingdom right here, right now! Amen…
But God…
Proverbs 22: 15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
Proverbs 13: 24 He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
We look at the rod of discipline as punishment… but it is NOT! Discipline is always… ALWAYS… training… for the purpose of GROWING UP WELL. One might say that God is in the business of being our perfect PERSONAL TRAINER along with our perfect CREATOR who knows us to the very number of the hairs on our head. Our most avid fan who stalks us with the perfect love of our perfect PARENT (Parent Wannabe until we give ourselves to Him through Jesus) who wrestles with us even when we are at our most rebellious. Never punishment… only training to grow into the most awesome, unimaginable, radical gift of FREE WILL… a gift so powerful that it is used to choose life or death.
We don’t have to earn it… it is ours at birth. We can’t lose it… no matter how many obstacles are put into place. It isn’t a “right” it is the irrevocable nature given to every human.
Whereas we try to limit the use or consequences of the use, (much like gun-control) God trains us up. (Maybe instead of our “quick fixes” of taking away we should consider relationships that train up in the way we should go… oh I forgot… we are taking all of that out of our society because we don’t like the SHOULD, we hate the PERFECT SOURCE of all the should that should be, and we really just want to DO IT OURSELVES!)
Anyway… here we are… full circle.
I was reminded of all of this when I woke up after Christmas decorating, with muscles that I had forgotten to use all year-long…
Training… Exercise… Endurance building… sometimes called GROWING UP!
Not my favorite happy dance… but absolutely necessary… especially in my life because I love easy. I love procrastination. I love “been there, done that”. I NEED Peter’s exercise plan… the stair steps to dance up and down…run up and down… or… crawl up and down.
Jesus did the work that I couldn’t do… paid the price required for my misuse of my free will… the wages of sin is death… but He didn’t take away the gift. He gave us the opportunity for abundant life… to live as CHILDREN OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. When we give our heart to God through Jesus who is… the Way, the Truth, the Life… we CHOOSE God as our FATHER with all of the authority and power and will of the position. Along with that choice, comes training… we are the child… God is our Father!
And sometimes… no, most times… training produces pain and strain and scratches and bumps and bruises and brokenness and dirty clothes and stumbles and… sometimes… no most times… triumph and victory!… For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
No pain… no gain?
Some pain… ALWAYS gain!
(BTW… the decorations are beautiful… at least I think so!)
**All Scripture quoted comes from the “Bible Gateway” app and is the NASB version of the Bible