Rightly Corrected

 I had a lot of good teachers during my school years. One of the things that I think makes a good teacher is knowing how to rightly correct a student. The punishment should fit the offense, and it should be given out of concern for the student, not just out of anger or frustration. That is always a challenge, but good teachers do it well. Of course, God is the best teacher of all.

When the Lord punished His people, He always did it in the right way, and He let them know just what He was doing. This is one example from Jeremiah's time. (Jeremiah 46:28) "Do not fear, O Jacob, My servant," says the Lord, "for I am with you; for I will make a complete end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but I will not make a complete end of you. I will rightly correct you, for I will not leave you wholly unpunished." Let's see how this applies to us, as Christians.

We are God's servants, and He loves us. He is with us all of the time. There will be times when He has to punish us, and to do that He will bring forces against us to get our attention, and to get us to turn away from our sins and confess them to Him. When He has punished us the right amount, He will bring an end to the punishment, and we will be reconciled to Him, like we should have been all along. He will not punish us so much that we will be killed, unless that is what our sin calls for.

However, He will not leave us completely unpunished either. That is what we want a lot of times, and we even pray for God to let us off the hook. That would not be the loving thing for God to do. We need to have the right punishment, so we have the deterrent we need to stop committing that sin. God will punish us that way. Then, we should be thankful to God for rightly correcting us, even though it hurts. Then, we need to remember how God punished us so we won't do it again and have more punishment.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 47-49.