God's Discipline is Restorative

When we think of restoration we often think of someone buying an old house and fixing it up so that it is in brand new condition.  Or we think of restoring a car, or furniture or other items.  Yet did you know that your relationship with God needs restoring too? 

When we sin, we damage our relationship with God.  No matter how little our sin is, our sin is against God.  Through our sins, our relationship with God is severed.  Often, God uses discipline as a way to restore us back into right relationship with Him.  We see this in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-24.  Take a moment and read this passage of scripture. 

You’ll notice in verse 13 that the son “set off for a distant land and squandered the wealth”.  Basically this tells us that the son has chosen a path of disobedience or sin.  The leaving speaks of him severing his relationship with his father.  As we continue reading the passage we can see in verse 14 that “there was a severe famine in the land”.  The famine represents God’s gentle way of trying to get his attention.  It could be seen as a form of God’s discipline in his life or a consequence of his bad choice.  Often we try to pray away the hardships in our lives instead of listening to God to find out what purpose they serve and we miss God’s greater purpose in our suffering. 

At this point in the parable, the son is still hard-hearted and tries to fix things on his own.  In verse 15 we see that “he hired himself out”.  Often we try to fix things on our own too and don’t bother to go to God in our time of struggle or trouble.  Instead we use our own wisdom and strategies instead of His, bringing more trouble upon ourselves. Finally we see the son make a good decision in verse 17 when he “came to his senses”.  I think this is when God finally got through to Him.  The hard times had softened his heart so that he could accept the discipline of the circumstance and move towards making things right.

We see in verse 18 that the son has a revelation of his sinfulness; “I have sinned against heaven and against you”. He is truly repentant; he takes ownership of his sin.  He sees that he has sinned not just against God but also against his father.  It’s important to remember that not every bad circumstance in our life is a result of sin but this time the son’s conditions are directly related to his poor choices and disobedience.

Verse 19 gives us insight into the son’s heart.  He says, “Make me like one of your hired servants”. Often, after a period of discipline, we disqualify ourselves from having a good relationship with God.  Because of his sin, the son disqualified himself and was just hoping to be a servant.  We often do this, we fall and then don’t ever get fully restored because we can’t forgive ourselves, or we feel that God can’t forgive us.  We confuse the consequences and discipline of the Lord for lack of love so we keep ourselves on the outer edge and don’t fully embrace a restored relationship with God. 

copyright Liz Lemon Swindle

But this was not the father’s response at all towards the son.  In verse 20 we see that “His father saw him and was filled with compassion”.  There was immediate acceptance, the father RAN to him, threw his arms around him and kissed him.  This is not a father who is mad at his son.  The father is full of compassion, mercy and love for his son.  What a picture of how God feels about you!

It’s important to note that the son is repentant.  He takes responsibility for his sin (verse 21).  In Verse 22 we see that the father offers his son a robe, a ring, sandals and there is much feasting and celebrating.  The father is restoring his son back into the family! 

God’s discipline is restorative, not punitive. Do you get what that means?  God is not out to get you, He’s not up there just waiting to get you back for all the bad things that you have done.  His heart is one of compassion, love and mercy for His children (Psalm 103:8-14).

Yes, God disciplines us but He doesn’t do it because He is mad at you or because He wants to get you back or get even with you. God disciplines you because He loves you (Hebrews 12:5-11).  God’s discipline is restorative; He wants you back, fully restored into right relationship with Him.

The problem is that we have stuff that gets in the way of receiving that restoration.  We let our emotions control us and we have believed lies about Him.  Each time we do this our hearts get harder and harder towards Him.  Like the Prodigal son, we have kept ourselves in the position of “servants” instead of allowing Him to fully restore us as “sons”.  

God wants to restore you today.  It’s your choice to receive that restoration. You need Him to soften your heart with His love so that you can receive that restoration.

Personal Reflection Questions:

Step One: Ask the Lord to show you a time when you have felt that all you could ever be in God’s Kingdom was a hired servant, not one of His sons.  This could be because of a bad choice that you made, a sin that you committed, or it could stem from feelings of insecurity, or general feelings of rejection.  Spend a few moments confessing any sin related to this memory. 

Step Two: Ask the Lord to show you how this made you feel. (Try not to be vague, write down real emotions; used, hurt, betrayed, ignored, ashamed, angry, confused, etc.)

Step Three: Ask Jesus to show you any lies that you believed in the situation. (Could be a lie about Him, yourself, a person or a situation). Confess that you believed that lie.

Step Four: Ask Jesus to show you the truth of how He feels about you, the love that He has for you.  How He has ran to you and has offered you a robe, ring, sandals, feast and celebration.

Prayer: Thank God for what He showed you today, praise Him for His love, compassion and mercy towards you.  Tell Him how much you love Him!  How you want to be fully restored into His family!