In today’s passage we find the teaching of discipline by our heavenly Father. There are at least three ways God could deal with us when we sin:

1. God could condemn us – legalism
2. God could condone us – liberalism
3. God prefers to correct us – love

In the first few verses of this chapter the writer is saying, “If you are not a Christian, get in the race, because you have to enter before you can hope to win. If you are a Christian, run with endurance and don’t give up (vv. 1-2). Many of the Hebrew Christians, to whom this letter was written, had started well. But as the new began to wear off and problems began to arise. They started looking back at the old ways of Judaism, and they began to weaken and waver.

The key word in the next few verses is “discipline.” God uses hardship and affliction as a means of discipline and training His children, and to help them mature in their spiritual lives (vv. 3-4). The first thing we should think of when we are suffering is our Father’s love, “for whom the Lord loves He chastens (disciplines)” (v. 5-6). The second thing that discipline proves is our sonship (vv. 7-8). If we never get disciplined, we are probably not sons at all.