If we are known by God we will be corrected by God. Just as we correct and guide our children out of our love for them the Father does likewise. If we want to be children of God what does He require of us? He insists that we love Him above all others and love others as much as we love ourselves. If that is what transforms us into the image of His Son then I welcome all discipline that brings me closer to His character. We will learn the easy way or the hard way that God has all authority in heaven and on earth and He will teach us that we will not harm others in our journey. Ultimately, the Fruit of the Spirit will be evident in us.
Believers should not only endure God's discipline, they should readily be in subjection to their heavenly Father. God disciplines us with our good welfare in mind. With every trial, God is fashioning us into a holy people, set apart for His good purposes. The peaceable fruit of righteousness suggests that the result of God's chastening is peace and righteousness.
12:7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
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