Psalm 103:8-10 “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” Today's Episode talks about how important it is to know that just because it seems like your prayers are not being answered, it does not mean that God is punishing you. These bad things are not happening because God is punishing you for past sins. God does not punish us! Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Praise Series — God Is Not Punishing You!
Psalm 103:8-10, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”
Praising the Lord when we are in a good place is one thing. It is a completely different story when we are struggling. One reason is that we might think we are going through this hard time because God is punishing us. I was praying for someone who was suffering from tinnitus. While I was praying with him, he mentioned that he thinks he has tinnitus because God didn’t want him to listen to so much music and wanted him to pray silently more. If you lose your job or even if you lose a loved one you may believe that these bad things are happening because of something bad you have done in the past. We are all sinners and we may feel like God is punishing us for our sins.
I want to reassure each of you that God is not punishing you! I am 100% sure of this! God does not punish us. God is only good. If you want proof that God does not punish us, you can look at today’s Psalm. Psalm 103:8-10, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” God does not create the bad things that are happening in our lives. You did not get cancer because you had an affair. You did not have a miscarriage because you don’t go to church. God is not punishing you. God did not do this bad thing to you.
God is all-powerful and all-knowing. If he wants you to learn a lesson, he can teach it to you in a million different ways. He doesn’t have to have you get sick before you turn to Him. Just because God can use this awful tragedy or the illness for your good doesn’t mean He gave it to you. God does not create illness. He is a healer. God is love and mercy. God blesses people; He does not curse them.
If you need another scripture verse, look at Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Condemnation (punishment) is not for those who belong to Christ. God does not punish His children—He saves and restores them. John 3:17 states, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The central message is that Jesus's mission was not to judge and punish humanity, but to offer a way to be freed from sin and its consequences.
It is easier for many of us to believe that Jesus wouldn’t punish us, but harder for us to believe that God does not punish us. God is a good and loving Father. Regardless of what our own father was like, God is always good and always loving. It is hard for us to believe things if we have no frame of reference for them. I think part of the reason I can believe that God is a good Father who loves me and doesn’t want to punish me is because my own father was a good example of God’s love to me. I am not saying I never got into trouble as a kid. I did occasionally do things that weren’t ok. I did get in trouble. But my parents did not condemn me or make me feel shame for what I did. They gave me consequences so I would learn not to do it again, but they didn’t punish me.
I know that I am lucky and that so many kids don’t grow up with a loving, caring example of a Father. In the United States, 1 in 4 kids grows up without a dad in the home. That means 25% of kids in America are growing up without a dad. In the 2020 Census, there were 18.4 million kids who were living without their biological dad. It is easy to see how the view of God got so distorted. We are living in a world of broken people. We are all just doing the best we can, and yet the best for so many of us is not good enough. These are just the kids who grow up without a dad. We also have the kids who grow up with an abusive dad. If so many people have no reference for a father who loves you unconditionally and who would never hurt you, then how are they supposed to understand that God could actually love them like that?
If none of those other scripture verses convinced you that God is not punishing you, hopefully this one will. Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”Jesus took the full punishment, so we don’t have to. What we receive now is peace, not wrath. Do we deserve to be punished? Absolutely. Every single one of us has done something wrong, deserving of punishment. However, that is why God sent Jesus to us. Jesus came to save us from the punishment we deserved. "Jesus died the death we deserved, so we might live the life he earned.”
Why would God send his only Son to earth to die a gruesome death if he was just going to punish us for all we did anyway? If God is punishing you for your sins, why did Jesus die on a cross? When you are wondering if God is punishing you. When the enemy is whispering in your ear that you deserve this because of all the things you have done, I want you to take a look at a crucifix and ask yourself this question: “If that is true, if God is punishing me for all I have done, then what did Jesus die for?”
We must know that God is not punishing us, because once we know this, praising becomes a bit easier. I know it is still not easy to praise in difficult times. I know there are many circumstances where the idea of praising God or being grateful for anything while you are in that circumstance seems unthinkable and impossible. That is why I am doing this series. My prayer is that by the end of this series, you know how vital praise is, you know how to praise, and you can praise, even in the challenging times. I genuinely believe that praise is the secret answer to so many of our problems.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this episode. Lord, please help us in the wait. Help us to believe you are not punishing us. Help us to believe you are with us while we wait. Help us to keep faith and hope that things will get better and that we won’t be in this forever. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with Your Will and in Jesus’s Holy Name, Amen!
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you have been enjoying this podcast and you are looking for more, I want to invite you to join my mentoring group. If you are enjoying this series on praise, this might be the perfect month to join the mentoring program. It is Tuesday nights at 8 PM Eastern Time on Zoom. If you can’t make that time, no worries, you can always watch the replay. I would love to help you grow closer to the Lord. Click on the link in the show notes for more info. I could meet you live on Zoom on Tuesday. I would love to get to know each one of you. I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day.
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in July 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “Have no fear about how you will respond or how you should respond. Because my Holy Spirit given to each of your hearts deep inside of you, will respond as you see more and more clearly what it is that I wish to pour out on my people for healing, for goodness, for mercy, for forgiveness.”