At church yesterday our Director of Christian Education shared the memory of his father’s belt. Those of a certain age remember when the belt did more than hold up your dad’s trousers. It was also an instrument of discipline. While he was speaking, I recalled growing up and sharing a bedroom with my older brother. Some nights after we were sent to bed we would be fooling around and playing rather than going to sleep. Our father would come down the hallway and open the door, leading us to scamper into our beds and get under the covers. He would stare us down, with his hand on his buckle and say, “Do I have to take off my belt?” In my mind, I recalled the times he had pulled the belt out of all the loops on his pants and I could almost hear that haunting sound from “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”  We would plead with him not to do so, for we had both received the unwelcomed consequence of him doing so in the past. The threat was enough to get us to behave and go to sleep.

Romans 13:3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you.

When speaking of governments, Paul reminds us that those who obey the rules have no need to worry. And for the most part, that is true, even under many corrupt rulers.  Law abiding citizens do not need to fear being punished. That was also true in our home. If we obeyed the rules, there was no threat of punishment.

But what about before God?  The reality is, no matter how hard we try to live as God would have us live, we always fall short. We are all as guilty as my brother and I were when dad came down the hall. We deserved to be punished. Paul spoke about that in Romans 7.

Romans 7:18, 24 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. … What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Because of our sin, we all deserve condemnation. But God provided us a way out, a rescue from the punishment we deserve.

Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus came and took the punishment you deserve. He bore the consequences of your sin in His Body on the cross. He paid the price for you to be forgiven and redeemed and restored to God’s good graces.

The discipline I received as a child from my dad’s belt – which was deserved – is actually a reminder of wonderful the grace of God is. Jesus stepped in to take my punishment so that I could be forgiven and be with Him forever. He rescued me from my body of death.