Is It Chastening or Pruning?

God's discipline of chastening and pruning is the refining process through which the believer must pass before God can look at him and see His own face. Actually, God is looking for the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). God's discipline is an undeserved outpouring of His matchless love. As we undergo God's discipline, He is removing from us that which dims the image of Christ in us. Therefore we ought not to associate chastening only with chastisement, which generally refers to physical punishment. More properly, we should associate God's discipline with the idea of “making chaste,” or pure. Spiritual purity is the goal of God's chastening. Like all conscientious parents, God has a model or pattern to follow as He fashions the lives of His children. That pattern is Jesus Christ. And God's great purpose is that Christ should be “formed in” us.