You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.
– Deuteronomy 8:5

Thoughts on Today’s Verse…

This verse tells us that God’s disposition is righteous. When we resist and disobey God, God smites and disciplines us like a stern father.

David abided by Jehovah God’s commandments, and defeated Philistines by relying on God. But later he offended God’s disposition and was judged and punished by God because he occupied Uriah’s wife Bathsheba after being King. The first son of David and Bathsheba died in infancy and the sword would never depart from his house … David’s failure tells us that regardless of whether a person that God had once shown mercy to or loved, so long as he resists and disobeys God, he will be faced with God’s judgment and wrath. This is God’s righteous disposition and it will not allow any offense. God says, “When man is weak, when they are dispirited, when they have nowhere to turn, God will use His words to comfort, advise and encourage them, so that man of small stature can gradually find their strength, rise up in positivity and become willing to cooperate with God. But when man disobeys God or resists Him, or when they reveal their own corruption and oppose God, God will show no mercy in chastening them and disciplining them. To man’s foolishness, ignorance, weakness and immaturity, however, God will show tolerance and patience. In this way, through all the work God does for man, man gradually matures, grows up, and comes to know God’s intentions, to know some truth, to know what are positive things and what are negative things, to know what evil is and what darkness is.” God’s words made us understand that when His righteous disposition comes upon us, it is His salvation for us. If we truly repent to God, God will still guide us. Take David as an example: After the matter of Bathsheba, David truly repented to God and made a resolution to God that he would never do the evil thing. When he was old and couldn’t keep warm, his servant asked a virgin to lie beside him to help him keep warm, but he had no intimate relations with her. What’s more, he kept Jehovah God’s commandments more strictly, and guided the Israelites to worship God. God still had mercy on him and he was still the king supported by the Israelites.