These verses teach the importance of God’s chastening His children. The word chastening refers to child training and education. God’s chastening is not an angry revenge; it is an evidence of His fatherly love and care. From these verses we learn that there are three possible responses to chastening:

1. A person may despise it, give it no importance and assume what happened was just by chance. He does not benefit from it. It is like paying a large sum of money for something and neglecting to possess it. How sad, how foolish!

2. On the other hand, a person may get discouraged by it; instead of seeing the benefit of God’s dealing with him, he begins to doubt God’s love and listens to the enemy of our souls. God does not let us go through a discipline above what we can tolerate, for He always gives grace if we would just listen to His voice. If wise earthly fathers know how to discipline their children, how much more does our heavenly Father. He is “the Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement” (2 Cor. 1:3).

3. The right response to God’s chastening is not to ignore it nor to be discouraged, but to be exercised by it. That is how we can benefit from it. To be exercised by it means to examine our ways to see where we have failed and why. We ought to search our souls and say with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; prove me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any grievous way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24). This way we will experience that God’s chastening yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it.