Today's Devotional

 

June 30, 2008

                                                                                         

Subject:  Punished Or Chastised?

Hebrews 12:6-7  "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"

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At last week's bible study at our church, my wife, who was teaching the class, and I got into a vigorous discussion over the difference between punishment and chastisement.  I basically said that the two words are synonyms and her position is that chastisement carries a sense of correction that is not necessarily present with the use of the word punishment.

I won't restart that debate, but I did become enlightened to the fact that people will receive correction based on how they view themselves.  Sometimes people think that really bad things are happening to them and they want to know why.  That was the case of Job and it could've also been the case of Pharaoh as he began to see his kingdom falling down around him.  

Job went to God and wanted to understand if all of the bad things happening in his life were due to God's hand of correction.  Job was a child of God, which meant that he saw all things coming from God.  As the verse above says, he believed that God was "dealing with you (him) as with sons."

On the other hand, Pharaoh was outside of the family of God and had no respect for Jehovah.  Moses went to Pharaoh to tell him how God was going to punish him for not heeding God's words.

In the end, because Christ died for all mankind, everyone has the opportunity to be dealt with as "sons."  And if we are all "sons," then we know that we are chastised (whupped) by The Father, when we need to be.   

Today whether you're getting punished or chastised all depends on where you sit in relationship to The Heavenly Father.  Punishment happens to everybody.  Chastisement is for "sons."   

Carlen