God's promises bring privileges, but they also bring obligations. God's people learn that rebelling against him and breaking his covenant results in the mercy of chastening to train them in his ways and to turn them back to himself.

"Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:11-12).