I believe the one largest question I receive as a pastor is why is God doing this to me? Another form of this question is what did I do wrong? Why is God punishing me? I get it. I’ll admit sometimes it’s easy to view some of life’s less happy moments as punishment. It’s easy to see the illness, marital struggle, rebellious children, job struggles, financial crises or whatever your personal storm as a punishment from God for something we did wrong. But quite frankly this just isn’t how God operates and to be totally honest it goes completely contrary to the message of who God is. 

The point of punishment is reflective. It looks backward. Punishment is about what happened in the past. It focuses on mistakes. It highlights the troubles in life. It’s about failure. It’s about the stuff you and I do that is wrong. But this just isn’t what we learn about God. One of my favorite verses in the bible (ok they’re pretty much all favorites) is from Psalm 103:12 –

as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

This verse reminds us that our past isn’t God’s focus. It’s evidence that our actions of yesterday don’t bring our pain of tomorrow. Now, I’m not saying our actions don’t have consequences, because they absolutely do! But what I am saying is that our actions don’t bring punishment from God. That punishment was given to someone else. Jesus took that punishment on himself. God laid the punishment for you stupid choices, fears and failures all on the back of Jesus. He was punished. We aren’t punished.

To put it another way, punishment is reactive. God isn’t a reactive God. He’s a proactive God. He’s looking ahead. Not concerned with the past because the past has been dealt with in his son. When Jesus went to the cross, the journey to death was punishment. It was intended to take your punishment and mine. Now what we have remaining isn’t punishment; it’s discipline!

Now God does discipline! Boy does he ever discipline. Just look through the Old Testament especially! The people of Israel in the Old Testament felt the disciplining hand of God many times. And there’s a huge difference between punishment and discipline. Remember we discussed that punishment was reactive and past focused? Well discipline is just the opposite. It’s forward thinking and proactive. Discipline is God’s way of setting us up to be the people he’s created us to be.

Now it may seem like I’m spitting hairs here but give me about 4 sentences and hopefully it becomes a little more clear. The word we see as discipline has its roots in the idea for formation or training. Now replace the word discipline with the word training like in Hebrews 12:7 –

it is for discipline (training) that you have to endure. 

Training is a good thing! I remember when I first started working at Honda of America building 4-wheelers and motorcycles. I knew nothing about my job – nothing. But my manager and team leaders all took time to train me. They taught me the best, most effective way to accomplish the job. They taught me what they had learned while on the job for years. They taught me with words but also with experiences. Or think about when you first learned to ride a bike. I would venture a guess that you probably fell at least once!

I remember falling off my bike going down the hill in front of my house. I remember looking back at my dad near the middle of the hill wondering why he let go. But when I fell and skinned my knees I never once thought I was being punished. I knew (eventually knew) that it was only by falling that I would learn how to stay on my bike.

Punishment and discipline are two totally different things. God doesn’t wage his punishment on those who are in Christ. We have been covered by the death of Jesus. He took our punishment for us. But we are disciplined. God is using the challenging moments, hardships, struggles and pains to form us to become the people he knows we can be. Yes bad things happen. Yes cancer sucks. No it wasn’t part of his plan when he created this world, but he knew it was going to happen. The stuff you’re facing isn’t God punishing you. It’s God allowing you to see just how dependent he wants you to be on him. It’s God strengthening you for something.

Today, remember Jesus was punished that you might be trained in righteousness and sometimes that training is hard but it will yield something great as Christ is formed in you.