Some of the “it’s not an easy road” bit is actually that we aren’t perfectly walking according to God’s commands. Many challenges, trials, tribulations, hardships, and discipline actually come from God trying to either protect us from something worse, teach us something else, or divert us back to a correct path.
Independently of walking the strait and narrow, there can still be many problems in the world, but Jesus still overcame the world.
I was introduced to
Jeremiah 24 the other day for the first time. And it is the perfect chapter for understanding God's chastisement. I am going to retell it here just for your perusal.
The local story in Jeremiah’s days was that God called Jeremiah to tell his people to lay down their arms and give themselves up to Nebuchadnezzar to be carried away into Babylon.
This was due to their sins and their unrepentant ways. This was God’s way of chastising them. Their temple would be desolated and they would be in Babylon for 70 years in order to learn not to sin.
The kings of Judah at this point tried to punish Jeremiah and refused to do what God said. (This was the first problem — disobedience to the word of God.) They even tried to enlist Egypt to fight with them against Babylon. None of that worked.
Actually those that went to Babylon, God was protecting them, as God would bring them back and rebuild his temple. (Maybe you call this a sort of purging of God’s people. Removing the good figs from the bad figs)
Those who refused to go or who fled to Egypt or stayed back, God would destroy.
This truly is an example of true believers in today’s world who are accepting of God’s chastisement in their lives for good. Those who refuse chastisement will eventually be destroyed.
God is sovereign and infinite in all his ways and unknown to most Christians today, faith in Jesus Christ is only the first step, it must be followed through with obedience, as in Rev 3 when he spoke to his servants in the church of Laodecia.
Rev 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Jesus threatened to spit out the servants of his church if they did not stop being lukewarm.