Recently, Jay Allen saw something on social media that was just one of those messages that you want to share a million times. Pastor Micah Fries (Brainerd Baptist Church in Chatanooga, TN), recently spoke about a message focusing on the series of Jonah. One takeaway from this message was this: God doesn't punish his children. Ever. How can we say this with confidence?

Because to punish his children would mean that God would invalidate the cross. Speaking of Jesus and the Father God, made the one who did not know sin (that's Jesus), for God made Jesus to be sin so that we might be the righteousness of God that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, on the cross, Jesus became our sin. His body received the punishment for our sin that we deserved. That punishment, the Bible tells us was complete. It doesn't lack anything. God doesn't need Jesus on the cross and to punish us to make us right. That's a theological impossibility. God is not invalidating the cross. However, that doesn't mean that God doesn't discipline us. God corrects us, God disciplines us, and God brings to bear in our lives sometimes even painful experiences not to get us back but to point us forward, to help us see that what we're choosing to hold onto is inferior to what he has for us. That there is something so much better out there for us than what we choose to hold onto. Understanding this truth will change your life forever. God does not, ever, punish his children.