Don’t Look the Other Way
“Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:” Job 5:17
When God convicts you, don’t look the other way. When He chastens you, don’t turn in the other direction. When He makes it abundantly clear you are faced in the wrong direction, don’t run from Him. Turn around and run to Him. Some of us have it all wrong when it comes to God’s conviction and chastening. God doesn’t tell us what we are doing wrong because He hates us. He does it because He loves us. How foolish we are when we run away from Him into the tantalizing, tempting, whorish arms of the ways of this wicked, selfish, perishing world that is headed straight for hell and the lake of fire when God by His Spirit convicts us of sin so we will fall on our hands, knees, and faces weeping in repentance and crying out to Jesus to save us so God will forgive us. Oh, how I believe He longs to draw us into His everlasting arms of hope, grace, mercy, of a tender love we cannot even fathom, into a relationship with Him that so far surpasses any of life’s pleasures that once we know Him and experience Him, once we drink thirstily of His fountain of His never-ending river of love, once we hungrily, ravenously eat of the feast of His Word, once we partake of His intimate fellowship, once we marvel at His sovereignty, once we determine to trust in Christ as LORD and SAVIOR no matter how hard it is to say no to the lusts of our flesh, oh, once we are filled with the joy of His Spirit dwelling in us that is like no earthly joy, once we learn to abide in Christ and to yield to Christ abiding in us, oh, yes, we yearn for more of Him, more of the life of Christ in us and through us. Oh, may we come to comprehend the glorious gift of His conviction and chastening as He woos us to Himself and then ever conforms us to Christ!
See His conviction of your sin and chastening as a sign He wants you to be entirely His, not the world’s, not to die and go to fiery hell, but to live forever in relationship with Him, to revere Christ as Lord, to enjoy God’s fellowship for eternity. There is no Father like Him. How many of us have lost earthly fathers or never had them, have been abused, neglected, rejected, or abandoned by them, or had them and lost them to a tragedy, or have loving fathers on earth but know they are not perfect? But God the Father is perfect, holy, righteous, true. He sent His Son to the cross to pay the death and hell penalty for all our sins so we would despise not His Spirit’s conviction and chastening but see it as a welcome gift by which He brings us to repentance and under Christ’s cleansing blood, into His reign of mercy, into His fold of blessed love forever!
Repent and come running to His throne and fall on your face before Him! Oh, come running to the Lord! Don’t look the other way! Turn to the Lord, oh turn!