Taking heat for wrongdoing

He does not treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103:10).

Have you ever taken heat for doing something wrong? You were playing recklessly and broke something around the house.  You got caught cheating on a test.  The person you were dating caught you in a lie.  Someone at work told the boss how you were misusing company property.  So you were punished.  You might have gotten a stern lecture; you might have been given an ultimatum to shape up or else.  You might have lost your privileges.  You might have lost a relationship or your place on the team.

Have you ever taken heat for something that wasn’t your fault? Your whole class got punished for staying silent when the teacher demanded “who did that?” Mom blamed you for something your brother did and wouldn’t take your word over his.  You lost your best friend because she wrongly believed you were the one who betrayed her confidence. 

You understand the need for justice. You want the guilty to be punished and the innocent to be spared.  But when you do something wrong and know that you’re guilty, justice loses its’ appeal.   You don’t want the hammer to fall; you shrink away from punishment. 

We’ve all suffered retribution for doing wrong.  But none of us has gotten what we truly deserve; to this point, we’ve all gotten off easy.  Every time we misbehave, we anger God because we’ve broken His law. The penalty for sin is hell—a pit of darkness and pain, a place of loneliness and regret, a prison with no hope of escape or parole.  That terrible punishment awaits each of us when life finally comes to an end.

As much as we dislike punishment, the pain seems even worse when we suffer for being falsely accused.  None of us like taking the heat for another person’s mistakes.  Yet that is exactly what Jesus suffered when He was sentenced to die at Calvary.  He was the perfect Son of God come to earth in the body of a man—a sinless man who obeyed God perfectly in thought, word and deed.  On the cross, our Savior accepted God’s punishment for your sins and mine—He took the heat for us, the terrible heat of hell itself.  Jesus suffered unfairly because He loves you and wanted to spare you from the place of everlasting fire.  If you love Him in return, you won’t get what you deserve.