Which takes more love, to forgive your child or to forgive your child and then take however much time and strength is required to train him or her so the offense is not repeated?

Your child will be very happy to receive your forgiveness. He or she may not be as willing to be disciplined in order to correct his behavior.

The Gospel is often presented as forgiveness alone. We humans want to be forgiven so we can escape punishment. But if forgiveness were all there is to salvation there would be no Kingdom of God, no new Jerusalem, no Paradise of righteousness, love, joy, and peace. Would there?

Suppose your child on several occasions has stolen money at school. Suppose every time he did so you forgave him and did nothing else. What would you be doing? You would be making him a thief.

If God kept on forgiving our sins and did nothing more about it He would be contributing to our sinful, rebellious nature.

You have to tear yourself away from your business and pleasure, sit down with the child, and find out why he is stealing money.

There may be a logical reason, something that needs to be corrected. In any case the child must be convinced he is being treated fairly, it is unacceptable to steal, and if he does there will be serious consequences. This is called training up a child in the way he should go.

If you do not correct this behavior at an early age the police will deal with him or her later on.

So it is with God. God forgives us and then sets about to correct the problem, understanding that if He does not the Lake of Fire is in the wings. Maybe the Christian churches of our day do not understand the seriousness of sin in God's children and the possibility of deadly consequences, but God does.

We are to arm ourselves with a mind to suffer because suffering drives from us our worldliness, our lusts, and our self-will and stubbornness. We cannot bring these into the Kingdom of God. We cannot bring these into the new Jerusalem. We cannot bring these into the Paradise of God nor will we be given to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

One aspect of the problem of judgment, suffering, and sin in the Christian life is our belief that dying physically will automatically make us eligible for the new Jerusalem, or when the Lord comes we will be transformed magically. These fond beliefs of ours have no scriptural basis whatever.

Sin began in the Paradise of God and is spiritual in nature. We are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against unclean, rebellious spirits.

When we die we will not be changed. What we are, we are. Rather, after death comes judgment.

We are not changed by dying. We will not be changed in personality when the Lord appears, except that those who have been totally diligent in overcoming the obstacles set before them will proceed to great glory. They have been faithful in the lesser and they will be assigned the greater.

To be continued.