#DailyDevotion Suffering Temporal Punishment Or Being Disciplined?
Psalm 6 6My groaning wears me out. Every night I make my bed swim and my couch flow with tears. 7My eyes are hollow with grief and grow old because of all my enemies.
The effects of David realizing his sin are just too much for him. He has sinned and as a result, his son born from the fruit of that sin will die. Sounds harsh, but David did commit adultery, which is punishable by death and then committed murder to cover it up, which is also punishable by death. It would take the death of God’s own son, Jesus Christ, to pay fully for that sin. As it is, he is only receiving a temporal punishment.
Have you ever spent sleepless nights because of your sin and the result of it? Does the guilt of it make your bed swim and couch flow with tears? Do your eyes ever get hollow with grief and grow old because of your enemies? Why not? Don’t you consider your sins something serious? Do you not realize the severity of them? Have you not looked upon a cross or crucifix and understand the suffering, pain, indignity, shame and death of Jesus and realize he went though what you deserved for your sin? Yet that was the cost of forgiving you your sin. God does not want you to wallow in it. He does want you to know the great cost to Him it is in forgiving your sins.
Of course sometimes we are just that way, like Job. We have no idea if we did anything wrong but it sure seems like God is punishing us for something. We certainly deserve it for our sins but there isn’t a direct correlation. We are like Job protesting our innocence. True, it may be God is testing us to see if we remain faithful to Him and look to Him for relief. He may be seeing if others around us will remain faithful to Him. We should continually bring our lament before God until he grants us relief. This is a good and faithful thing to do.
8Get away from me, all you who do wrong, because the LORD has heard my crying, 9the LORD has heard me ask for mercy, the LORD accepts my prayer. 10All my enemies will be miserable and terrified and suddenly turn back in disgrace.
While David certainly deserved derision from people for what he had done, his enemies were using his sin and his condemnation as a tool to further their own agenda. They were not righteously indignant by David’s behavior. We too should make sure we aren’t looking to take advantage of someone who has fallen into sin or bad times. God knows the intention of these people’s hearts.
David having turned to the LORD in humility and faith now has the confidence of that faith to know the LORD has heard his crying, his cry for mercy and the LORD accepts his prayer. His enemies who wanted to use this tribulation for their own advantage, God knows how to take care of them. If they do not repent, the LORD will have them be miserable, terrified and suddenly turned back in disgrace. We should know the LORD hears our cries for mercy when we offer them to Him in humility and faith. When suffering, and at all times, we have nothing to God our Father but our broken and contrite hearts. We have nothing to offer the LORD Jesus Christ that isn’t already owned by Him or owed to to Him. What do we have to offer to bargain with Him? We have zilch. Yet the faith we turn to Him with is more precious to Him than gold, silver or any great works we would try to bargain with him for the answer to our prayers. Humility and faith is what he is seeking.
Heavenly Father, may we come to you with humble and faithful hearts when we pray to you in Jesus’ name so we may receive from you all your mercies. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.