12/20/11

This Week in Scripture; God is my Judge.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. - Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

As much as we all like to believe that God is a loving God (He is, by the way!), He is also a God who judges righteously; He is a Judge and He is holy. If He wasn't holy, then He really couldn't be loving; if He never disciplined His children, then why claim Him to be loving?

That said, to discipline a child shows that you love him enough to correct ill behavior; to ignore the wrong behavior is to hate that child.

My daughter is 2; she does a lot of things that, frankly, annoy me. It is my job, as her mother, to discipline her when she does something wrong. Yet, I must discipline her when I'm not angry, otherwise she'll fear the discipline for the wrong reasons (I'd don't want her growing up in a household like mine, where we feared discipline because the person who dealt the punishment did so out of anger.).

Yet, this child was entrusted to me by God; He saw fit that I'm to care for this child and to train her in the Lord. She is to know God's commandments and statutes; she is to understand her need of a Savior and that Savior is Christ the Lord. She is also to understand that God draws us to Him and He is our Shield and Mighty Fortress when we are in need of it.

Most importantly, she is to understand that God is a just Judge, yet a merciful Father at the same time. His judgment was pronounced upon Christ, who was a sinless Man, who took our place on the cross.

God is love, but He is also just and holy. We're to adore and praise Him, but we're also to rightfully be in awe and in fear of Him.

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