BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE GOD MAY AFFLICT
Many people wonder why God afflicts his people. The Bible gives us some insights: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). And God sometimes “disciplines the one he loves” to correct them in their relationship with. (Hebrews 12:6-12).
GOD AFFLICTED HIS PEOPLE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE.
Because of God’s love for his people of the Old Testament he afflicted them to cause them to return to him. They had lost their love for him. The Lord disciplined them by allowing another nation to take them captive. But when they repented and prayed and turned to him, the Lord forgave them, freed them, and corrected their relationship with him. (Ezekiel 39:33; Jeremiah 50:4-5).
GOD SOMETIMES AFFLICT HIS PEOPLE TODAY BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE.
The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). His love is the same. But he might use different forms of adversities to correction his people today? He might use wars, disasters, sickness, and other many other types of troubles to cause his wayward people to turn to him.
The Lord said, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2Chronicles 7:14).
But even in situations where the Lord people are walking the right way, he may allow them to be afflicted because of love and glory. The Word of God says to these: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. (1 Peter 4:12-13). For “the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10).
The Lord God is preparing his people to live with him in heaven forever (John 6:3). And when he returns, “we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
