June 9th
You're Right
2Chron 12:6 Then the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is right in doing this to us!”
For many us when things happen to us because of our sin, we can’t see how God’s righteous reaction is a “right” response from a loving God. We can’t understand why we don’t get a second or third chance. We can’t comprehend why His actions are so severe. We often can’t fathom how He could love us and still lash out at us.
We discredit God’s actions as unloving. We can’t see how God could do this. But His actions do no diminish His love, but demonstrates it. His actions are not capricious or bias. God disciplines those He loves. Solomon, Rehoboam’s father, wrote, “for the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov 3:12). So, when Solomon’s son led Israel into disobedience by erecting places to worship false gods “on every high hill, and under every green tree” (1 Kgs 14:23), he should have known the Lord would discipline them for their actions. And He did. He loved them too much to leave them like that. God is loving in disciplining us.
The Lord’s discipline is not contingent on the type of sin, even though the sins that they committed were “more then all their fathers had done” (1 Kgs 14:22). God punishes the one who spreads malice and the murderer alike. He doesn’t discriminate in the distribution of His discipline. The harshness of His hand may be affected by the severity of their sin, but all who disobey Him will be disciplined by Him.
Yet even in their judgement, the children of Israel understood that God was just in punishing them for “abandoning the law of the Lord” (2 Chron 12:1). Their intentional disregard for His instruction incurred His judgement. It would have been unjust for God to punish them had He not given them clear principles to obey and the prescribed punishment for not adhering to His guidelines. It would have also been unjust and unloving to overlook, disregard or dismiss their disobedience without disciplining them. Those how had been punished in past would cry injustice on God’s part by disciplining them and dismissing these. God’s character demands impartiality in dispensing discipline. God is just in punishing sin.
This leaves us with a similar response to God’s punishment for our sin, by proclaiming, “The Lord is right in doing this to us!” We must affirm that God is righteous and His actions toward us are righteous. He is right in His response to our rebellion. He must and He will punish our sin. But the irony of this is that He punished our sin by the death of His Son. We deserve every ounce of His wrath poured out in full measure upon us because of our disobedience, but instead of placing it on us, He punished His son and pardoned us. He didn’t dismiss our sin, but He dealt with it on the cross. Jesus died when we should have died. That is God justice upheld and His love displayed. It sounds crazy, but “The Lord is right in doing this to us!”
Today thank God that He is a righteous, loving, and just God. Thank Him that He always does what is right. Thank Him that He can not and will not let sin go unpunished. Thank Him that Jesus willingly took upon Himself the punishment we deserve. Rejoice in the Justice of God that brings us joy in Jesus.
Comments