Things God will Always Punish
When we see others commit sins, we often decide if they are serious sins, or if we should overlook them. I know a sin is a sin, and all of them are hurtful, but we are to be merciful like God is merciful. There are times in God's mercy when He doesn't punish us as much as we deserve to be punished. We have to decide when we will be merciful, and when we will enact the right punishment for the sin. This can be very challenging for us, but God always makes the right decisions about punishing sins.
The people of Judah had all kinds of enemies. The prophet Amos gave a prophecy about what God was going to do to their enemies. When it came to Edom's punishments, we see some things that can be very helpful for us to remember. (Amos 1:11) "This is what the Lord says: The people of Edom have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished. They chased down their relatives, the Israelites, with swords, showing them no mercy. In their rage they slashed them continually and were unrelenting in their anger." Let's see what made God so angry.
When we sin again and again, committing the same sins over and over, it shows that we have a serious heart problem. There are times when we will fall into sin, and then, we will realize what we have done and repent of that sin. We will stop committing that sin. However, when we do not have the desire to avoid sinning and repent of our sins, God has to punish us. He must show us our need to listen to Him. This is especially true when we hurt others, especially our family and relatives, over and over. God knows the damage that causes to vital relationships.
Often the reason for our sins is that we have a lack of mercy toward others, and we have a problem with unrelenting anger. Like I said, we, as believers, are to be merciful like God is merciful, but also we are to put away anger. We must not think that anger is good and allow our anger to break out over and over again. We must remember that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:20) Therefore, if we find ourselves being motivated by anger continually, and we are hurting others because of that, God will punish us severely. We need to listen to what God is saying and repent of this sin, or God will come against us to stop us from hurting others, like He came against Edom.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Amos 2-4.