Endure every hardship as a discipline of grace.

Discipline is to present us before grace, it does not produce grace to make sense.

It is no accident that the words discipline and disciple resemble each other in the English language. The most common word in the Gospels for a Christian is disciple.

Christ never told his disciples that they would get an Academy Award for their performances, but He did tell them to expect to have troubles.

We are commissioned to make disciples, to bring them into the same direct relationship with Christ as those who left their nets and their fishing boats to become __ishers of men.

God does not discipline us to subdue us but to condition us for a life of usefulness and blessedness. In His wisdom, He knows that an uncontrolled life is an unhappy life, so He puts reins on our wayward souls that they may be directed into the paths of righteousness.