God's Discipline on Believers
God loves everyone. He wants everyone to respond to His revelation of Himself so they can trust Christ and be a part of His family. When we come to know Jesus, our sins are forgiven once and for all. God gives us eternal life. However, when we sin after we believe in Jesus, He has to discipline us for those sins. The reason for this is that He is holy, and our sins separate us from having a close relationship with Him. He knows that sin hurts us in other ways, too. Therefore, the discipline is to help us stay on track and have the best life we can have. God showed Jeremiah this truth after the fall of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 46:28) We can learn from what God told Jeremiah He was going to do with His people then.
The descendants of Jacob sinned by going down to Egypt to escape from the rule of the Babylonians. God was angry with them because of their rebellion. However, God came to them and told them not to be afraid, because He would destroy their enemies, but He would not destroy them. Instead, God promised to discipline them with justice, because He could not leave them unpunished. That is how our Good Father handles the sins of His children. He punishes us, but He does it with fairness and for our own good. He pours out corrective discipline to stop us from doing the wrong things, and He shows us the right things to do, so we can do them well. This is why we should not expect to escape His punishment for our sins after our salvation. We should confess our sins and repent of them as soon as the Holy Spirit convicts us. (I John 1:9) We should build the right things into our lives by the Holy Spirit's power, so we can live in a way that pleases the Lord all of the time. That is the goal of God's discipline for us, as His children.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 47-50.
The descendants of Jacob sinned by going down to Egypt to escape from the rule of the Babylonians. God was angry with them because of their rebellion. However, God came to them and told them not to be afraid, because He would destroy their enemies, but He would not destroy them. Instead, God promised to discipline them with justice, because He could not leave them unpunished. That is how our Good Father handles the sins of His children. He punishes us, but He does it with fairness and for our own good. He pours out corrective discipline to stop us from doing the wrong things, and He shows us the right things to do, so we can do them well. This is why we should not expect to escape His punishment for our sins after our salvation. We should confess our sins and repent of them as soon as the Holy Spirit convicts us. (I John 1:9) We should build the right things into our lives by the Holy Spirit's power, so we can live in a way that pleases the Lord all of the time. That is the goal of God's discipline for us, as His children.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 47-50.