Good Morning! Back in the day there lived groups who thought to make themselves suffer. You have probably seen them characterized in movies or books. However, I think all of us now realize that hurting yourself is not the way to salvation. How would loving others as you love yourself fit in with whipping your own body? Are you or I guilty of whipping ourselves mentally though? Living in guilt, blaming your own shortcomings for any negative event, wallowing in self pity; is all of that really much different from the flagellants of yesterday? We may disagree with the sugar-coated message of the “God will make you rich” ministers, but they have one thing right, we are to live in victory! Learn from your mistakes and move on in the glow of faith in our Lord Jesus. Not every negative event in your life is punishment from God; many bad things are simply the result of sin in this world. Does a loving father continually beat his child? No, he does correct his child, and those times can be uncomfortable or painful. However, we should never leap to the conclusion that all suffering is punishment. I suspect when we get to heaven and have the opportunity to ask God about certain events in our life - that is assuming we will even worry about our old lives at that point – we will find that many which we thought came about as the result of our actions, were not related to us personally at all. People will do hateful things to any of us, once our faith and the light of Jesus in our lives becomes apparent. We do live in a blessed country; the simple act of being on this devotional list might land you in jail and in torment in many parts of the world. Let us give a prayer of thanksgiving today for our nation.
God be praised!
Bucky
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