Our Punishment

Has anyone ever accepted your punishment? As a child, many times our parents didn’t take a lot of time determining who really broke the lamp, ate all the pizza, or left the mess in the den, they just made a quick decision and punished the person they thought did the crime. Rarely, when our parents wrongly accused us, did we stand quietly by and willingly take the punishment.

I thank God that He is not like us. The Bible says in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As humans, we have done many things wrong (committed sins). Some sins we consider small, like lying to stay out of trouble, some we consider grave, like murder, but for all these sins we commit, we deserve to be eternally separated from God. We deserve to be punished. But God loves us so much that He sent us His son Jesus to become the substitute for us and to accept our punishment. God did this so that we could eternally commune with Him.

Even as children, when a sibling voluntarily stood up and took a wrongful punishment in our place we were thankful for their sacrifice for our benefit. How much greater is it then that Jesus, who did nothing wrong, willingly came to earth and took on our punishment for the many wrongs we have done so that we can eternally be with God. That is reason to celebrate Christ this Christmas season.