LASHES OF LOVE!  DFO 606  15/8/75

         [HomeARC note (9/98): The Charter is the current source of Family policy and rules regarding the discipline of minors.]

(A Prayer & Talk from a Leadership Meeting:)
         1. DO YOU THINK YOU HAD ENOUGH PRAYER? It's not how long you pray or how much you pray, it's how much you believe. Amen, have Thy way now, Lord, Thy will be done. Lead & guide by Thy Spirit, Lord. We know nothing, we are nothing, we have nothing but You, Jesus, & we ask You to have Thy way, in Jesus' name. May this be a lesson to us all, Lord.
         2. We cannot nourish others unless we ourselves are refreshed & nourished & can minister unto our babes of the strength which Thou dost supply. So help us to remember that we need rest & we need nourishment & we need refreshing & we need inspiration. We cannot feed them from empty shells, Lord, from an empty cupboard, an empty heart, an overburdened heart, a strained body that has not even enough for itself much less for others.
         3. Help us to drink in to overflowing so that we can overflow upon others, not to have to try to squeeze out the last drop of our blood & our strength & our time & our spirit to nourish someone else when we haven't enough even ourselves.
         4. Help us never to forget that the first place is for YOU, Lord, & we must drink of Thee & Thy Spirit if we're going to have enough not only for ourselves, but to overflow upon others.
         5. Help us to let You take good care of us, Lord, & to give You all the cooperation we can by getting proper rest, Lord, & proper exercise & diet. Help us most of all to get the rest, exercise & diet of Thy Word & Thy Spirit & Thy Service, that we may be physically whole & well & strong & well able to serve Thee, & spiritually whole, strong & happy in Thy service, Lord. Help us not to be so pressured that we put off our time with Thee.
         6. BLESS THOSE WE HAD TO DEAL WITH SO STERNLY, LORD. Help them, Jesus, encourage them. Help them to know that we love them, Lord, that we may restore them as brethren & gain them again & not lose them. Help us, Lord.
         7. Help them to get back to Thee, to the place of humble serenity & complete surrender in Thy arms, Lord. Help them, Jesus, to humble themselves in Thy mighty hand, then in due time, if it so please Thee, Thou shalt highly exalt them. You said, "Humble thyself under the mighty hand of God & in due time He shall highly exalt thee." (1Pe.5:6) But "he that exalteth himself shall be humbled, & he that abaseth himself shall be exalted." (Lk.14:11) Hallelujah! Thank You for Thy precious Word, Lord, so true, so true, Lord!
         8. Such pride comes before a fall, Lord. Help us, Lord. Even if we're sensitive, Lord, it's a sign of pride, if we're too sensitive & we snap back or we feel hurt. Sensitiveness is born of pride & pride is of the Enemy, Lord, & we ask Thee to deliver us from this machination of the Evil One. This is such a temptation to leadership, Lord.
         9. So often we are tempted to try to cover for ourselves or cover for our mistakes, Lord, because we think that our followers must think we're perfect & we dare not make a mistake. Yet, Lord, we have found that even our mistakes have been a blessing. When we admit & confess our mistakes, & explain how we made them & why we made them & warn others how not to make the same mistakes, Lord, it has then been a lesson & a blessing not only to us, but we have also shared it with others that it might help them too. So we thank You, Jesus.
         10. We thank You even for our mistakes that keep us humble & show others that we're human & we're no better than they are. If there's a chance for us, there's a chance for them; if You can forgive us, You can forgive them, Lord.
         11. Help these precious leaders, Lord, these Thy shepherds who are so responsible for Thy sheep. Lord God, keep them humble, keep them close to You, Jesus. Help them to know they cannot do it without You. They cannot do the Master's work without the Master's power.
         12. I DON'T THINK YOU CAN EVER REALLY BE A GOOD LEADER, a wise humble leader, until you've pulled some awful boners & made some terrible mistakes & committed a few sins & really blown it a few times yourself. For one thing, you'll never be humble enough unless you do.
         13. As long as you're pretty perfect & you haven't made many mistakes, you're going to think you're really something & you're doing pretty good. And then you're much more unmerciful on those who do make mistakes. You'll be much more merciful to those who follow you if you yourself realise how much you need mercy!
         14. We feel sorry for a child or babe or whoever it may be because they seem to hurt so bad & they yell so loud & you're tempted to stop the spanking a little prematurely before they've really learned their lesson. But don't rescue them prematurely, until you're sure the job is done. Now this may sound cruel to you, but it's the truth, & I've had this experience with my own children when they were small.
         15. When it becomes necessary to finally enforce the law that you've given, if after many warnings & many counsellings they go ahead & do it stubbornly, rebelliously, willfully anyway, you finally have to lower the boom & apply the rod, as God's Word says. It's very very Scriptural, & if you don't do it, you're going to be sorry. (See Pr.13:24; 19:18; 22:15; 23:13.)
        
         19. The only way they can prove it is on probation, by their works, by their fruits, until you know that it's a genuine repentance. Jesus said of the Scribes & Pharisees, "Bring ye forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." (Mt.3:8) Their works will produce the fruits & "by their fruits ye shall know them." (Mt.7:20)
         20. THE LITERAL MEANING OF THE WORD TRANSLATED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AS "CHASTISEMENT" IS "CHILD TRAINING" in the original Greek. Now a lot of people seem to think that chastisement means punishment. But the best kind of so-called punishment should be chastening or child training, something that will teach them something, train them & help them to learn the lesson, & help them never to make the same mistake again.
         21. Design the punishment or the child training so that it has something to do with the offence. I was always greatly in favour of punishing the offending member. Jesus said something about that in the New Testament. If they kept touching something they weren't supposed to touch, I'd finally spank their hand after I'd warned them again & again.
         22. Spanking the offending member helps them to get the point of what's done wrong, which member it was that committed the sin or did the wrong thing. Let them know, not just abruptly without warning or without any previous knowledge of the law or the rule you've laid down, but like the Lord does.
         23. God first lays down the law: "Now here it is, take it or leave it. You can do right or wrong, you can obey it or disobey it." Then if you play around, He may give you one or two warnings, "Now don't! Don't! Don't!"
         24. YOU CANNOT PUNISH A CHILD FOR DOING SOMETHING WRONG THAT THEY DIDN'T KNOW WAS WRONG, it's not really fair. You've got to give them the Word! You've got to tell them the rules & give them the law, but they have got to let it sink in to where they remember it & it works in their own minds & hearts so they remember to keep it. You've got to help them learn God's Word, the general rules of life, & your word, the general rules of your house.
         25. Warn them ahead of time of what's going to happen so that they will know. This is why sometimes the Lord says, "they which sin before all rebuke before all" (1Ti.5:20); you have to make some people an example that others may fear. We can't let them get away with it, even if we would like to let them get away with it.
         26. The Bible says to apply the rod & "spare not for his crying" (Pr.19:18). Why? Because if you spare too soon, stop too soon, he's going to say, "Well, that wasn't too hard to take, I'll try it again next time."
         27. Well, don't be too easy on them, but don't be too hard on them either. You can also be too harsh & too severe, too hard on them, & the Lord says some words of caution about that in the 12th Chapter of Hebrews.
         28. WHEN THE CHILD TRAINING, THE CHASTENING, THE PUNISHMENT IS OVER, THEN'S THE TIME TO LOVE, to comfort, to encourage, "lest that which is lame be turned out of the way," becomes discouraged.--Lest you get so hard on them that they just can't meet the standards & they have to give up & quit. So encourage them all you can. (Heb.12:12)
         29. Finally, forgive, comfort & love'm up! Love never fails! God is Love! Love one another! The lashes are love too, but it's not always easy for a child to understand this kind of love.--Do you? GBY!


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