In another teaching from Romans, speaking of the saints of God, Paul wrote: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). It is God’s will that every believer is to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ, who led a life separated from sin. Therefore when we do sin, God sends His disciplines into our lives in order to separate us from our sins. God’s discipline is itself a sign that we belong to Him, as we learn from Hebrews 12. The writer of Hebrews quoted a passage from Proverbs 3:11-12 when he wrote:
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him,
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.” (Hebrews 12:5b-6)
Sin always brings God’s rod of correction into the lives of His people.
On those occasions when we know that we are experiencing the consequences of our own sin, let us confess our sin before God, repent of it and forsake it, being fully determined to root it out of our lives.
God’s promise of forgiveness is ours as believers, but we must understand that He will not allow sin to persist in the lives of His people. He will surely separate us from our sin, and we will not like the means that He uses to do so. The writer of Hebrews instructed us again when he wrote: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).
While God may allow sin to continue for some time in the lives of unbelievers with no apparent consequences to themselves, He will not allow it in the lives of His people. Sin in the life of a believer always brings about God’s discipline, which serves to restore us to obedience.