READ 2 Thessalonians 1:5-6

These verses set forth the truth of God's justice, as it applies to believers in verse 5 and as it applies to lost people in verse 6.

He says in verse 5 that the fact that believers are suffering is evidence of the righteous judgment of God. He is saying that even the suffering that God's people experience is a part of the total process of the justice of God.

God is even able to take the difficult times and the injustices that we experience and bring them to the point of being a positive impact on our lives. He DOES NOT say that our sufferings make us worthy. He does, however, say that we are counted worthy (or deserving) of the kingdom of God. It is a part of the process. It is a part of the purpose that God is working out in our lives.

The clearest example of this in all of the Scripture is Job. Here was Job, a man described by God as a man “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” And yet Job experienced injustices at the hand of the devil.

The injustices, suffering, and tragedy that Job experienced were a part of the process, that God was using, to make Job what God wanted him to be.

When you and I are going through the tragedies that inevitably come into our lives, we must always rest in the fact that beyond the present tragedies and sufferings there is a just God who is at work in our lives and who has a positive plan and purpose for it all eventually.

There are times when Christians go through experiences where they could not maintain their sanity any other way but to believe, that beyond it all, God has a purpose.

Psalm 27:13 says, "I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." The Psalmist conveys, I've been experiencing some of the injustices in the world, and I couldn't have made it unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord.

The truth of God's justice for believers is that even in the process of suffering God is using those sufferings that we might be counted worthy of the kingdom of God.

He's getting us ready for something in the future.

As the truth of God's justice applies to unbelievers in verse 6, Paul says it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.

The word, recompense, means to pay back. He is saying that God is going to pay back those who have done evil. God is going to pay back those who have inflicted injustices on others.

If you want to live in a moral universe you have to believe in a God who punishes sin.

You have to believe in a God who will render that which is due for those who have sinned.

It's kind of like a doctor. What kind of doctor would examine you, find that you had cancer, and yet say to you, "I have found cancer, but I love you so much I don't want to operate because it would inflict pain on you." I have a feeling that you would probably find another doctor.

If you have cancer, you want a doctor who will cut it out whether there is any pain or not. The same thing is true about God.

God is a loving God, but God is also a holy God. So, God is a God who must deal with sin, which is the most disturbing element in the universe.

A genuine doctor who loves health will hate the disease.

A loving holy God will hate sin which causes misery and heartache to the sinner.

Paul says in verse 6 that God is a righteous God, and it is only just that God deals with sin in His universe.

Your Friend and HIS,

Pastor Abbott

MEDITATIONS

1. Do you consider your faith to be as strong as it could be? Why or why not?

2. What is the key to having strong endurance and faith during trials?

3. How does God’s dealings with believers differ from His dealings with those who are lost in relation to today’s devotion?