Are you AFRAID of God? Do you FEAR His punishment? Does the thought of saying something like “God, judge me for my sins! Punish me for those things that I’m doing wrong, to MAKE me stop them!” send an involuntary shiver of fear through you?

Imagine saying it, right now… does it send cold chills down your spine?

Then you have done a pretty ROTTEN job of eliminating the sins YOU PROMISED GOD YOU WOULD ELIMINATE!

The only reason to fear the JUDGMENT OF GOD is if YOU KNOW that you are doing things that you KNOW are very likely wrong, and YOU KNOW that if God judges you – in fact, if He so much as glances your way – you’re in for it!

If this even remotely describes you, YOUR SALVATION IS IN GRAVE DANGER! You may have already drifted so far that to change now, to reject your habits that you love so dearly, yet KNOW may well be displeasing to God, seems such a monumental task that you CANNOT accept the truth! IF SO, THIS IS YOUR ONLY HOPE! If this is you, a PUNISHMENT from God to SHOCK you out of your complacency and FORCE you to look at yourself IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!!

When your father gave you a spanking, he did so TO MAKE YOU CHANGE! He did so because YOU WERE WRONG, and you NEEDED to change!

Proverbs 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

If you honestly look back on your youth you will see the NECESSITY, the VALUE of these punishments! And you can see that if you had not gotten them, you would have become a beast-like monster that cared only for itself!

Job 5:17 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

You should be happy – THRILLED – to receive correction from God! Because you know it will make you a better person when you STOP SINNING!

Psalm 94:10-13 He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law; That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

A spanking from God is a BLESSING! It is a BEAUTIFUL thing, that you should FERVENTLY WANT! And just like your father, as I heard many times growing up “If you’d listen when I ask, I wouldn’t have to yell; and if you listen when I yell, I wouldn’t have to spank”

God’s FIRST LINE of attack is the holy spirit. God sends a whisper in the back of your mind to tell you “Hey, stop that!.” If you heed this warning, and STOP IT, it need go no further. God punishes you for a REASON, not just for something to do! ALL He wants is for you to act like you oughta act!

After that step, if you ignore the whisper, often God will send a prophet to you. This may come in the form of a friend telling you “Hey, that’s wrong!,” or it may be that you happen to read a particular scripture that condemns whatever it is that you’re doing – but one way or another, God “yells.”

If you STILL resist, then as any parent would, He then resorts to punishing you to MAKE YOU SEE THAT YOU ARE WRONG AND HAVE TO CHANGE! If you don’t see the BEAUTY of this practice, it is because you LOVE YOUR SIN and have no INTENTION of changing!

Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

And James says to ENJOY the chastening of God!

James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Paul LOVED the chastening of God! He WANTED to receive God’s judgment to help him have a REASON to change! Because he knew that this was NECESSARY, indispensable to BEING RIGHTEOUS! Without the judgment of God, you would have no way of knowing if you were being unrighteous, just as without the spankings of your parents you would have no way of knowing when you were wrong, and you would have had NO REASON TO CHANGE, and you would have become an UTTERLY CORRUPT, MORALLY BANKRUPT ANIMAL!

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

God told Paul “no,” when Paul asked to have this JUDGMENT from God, this THORN in the flesh removed. Paul himself said the thorn was there because he had a tendency towards PRIDE, because of the amount of truth God had shown him! And without learning this lesson, and before learning to control his pride, he asked for this judgment to be removed!

It would be like punishing your child, and having your child ask you to stop… BEFORE HE HAD LEARNED THE LESSON, before he had CHANGED the cause of the punishment!

And when Paul REALIZED this, he said that he would GLORY in this process, in these infirmities, the judgments of God because THEY ENABLED GOD TO WORK WITH HIM! Because it was THROUGH THESE PUNISHMENTS, and him changing as he learned the reason for the judgments, that HE BECAME what God REQUIRED him to be!

Hebrews 12:5-10 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

You are punished for your faults IF GOD LOVES YOU! So that YOU CAN BE HOLY LIKE GOD!! If you want to avoid the judgment of God, if you want to COWER in a corner and hope He doesn’t notice you and SPANK you for your faults, do you have any idea that you are ASKING to be demoted – downgraded from the status of a LOVED SON, to an ILLEGITIMATE STRANGER! IS THAT WHAT YOU TRULY WANT??

It would ONLY be what you want if you have no INTENTION of listening to the correction! Only a child that NEVER INTENDS to please his parents despises the punishment. None of them enjoy it of course, but only those who WANT to be evil look back and hate their parents for the punishment!

If you FEAR God’s judgment, it is because YOU HATE GOOD, and LOVE TO BE EVIL! If you would be SCARED to ask God to punish you if you are offending him, FIND OUT WHY! Find out WHAT it is that he would be mad at you about, and STOP IT! BEFORE He punishes you – then he won’t have to!

1 Corinthians 11:31-32 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

If you had STOPPED those things that cause you to fear the judgment of God, because deep down, YOU SUSPECT THEY’RE WRONG, you wouldn’t NEED to worry about the judgment of God! God doesn’t have any reason to punish the righteous! He doesn’t spank those who don’t need it, any more than a good parent would!

Jeremiah 10:24 O LORD, CORRECT ME, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

FIND your secret sins, DISCOVER what you’re doing that makes you FEAR God’s Judgment and then ASK HIM the quote from the opening line of this article –

“If I’m doing wrong, SHOW ME! SPANK ME, PUNISH ME so I can find it and stop it!”