Psalm 5:1-12; Jeremiah 3:6-18; Romans 1:(26-27) 28-2:11; John 5:1-18
When I was raising my kids, as their mother it was always my desire to teach them well, and help them avoid pitfalls. I did not want to punish them – it made my life miserable as well as theirs. I did not want to give up on them, or my parenting skills. I know there were times I spent way too long trying to convince them that behaving badly would not go well for them. Yet, there were times I had to leave them to discover the consequences themselves. Those consequences were my anger, and punishment. But the ones that hurt me the most was the destruction their bad decisions caused. Many times, I could see it coming, because I had been there, done that.
There are bookends to God’s love too: mercy and judgment. I know I risk criticism in our liberal Christian culture, but God is a God of wrath as God is a God or mercy. Those outside – and even inside the faith – don’t want to believe God is a God of wrath, of judgment. They want to believe that God’s primary activity is showing love and compassion and mercy – healing and saving and nourishing. Indeed it is God’s character to call us home, to call us friend and children of God. To welcome us back and teach us the straight and narrow. Indeed God has all the wisdom and knowledge we need for life. Indeed in love God has given us prophets and teachers and the church to teach us how to behave well, to love and nurture us, as we hear Jeremiah proclaim: 5I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Indeed, God does love us and desires that we be righteous as God created us. God has given us Jesus as God’s ultimate act of love and mercy, when we would deserve to die.
But lest we believe that God does not show God’s anger and wrath, or will not leave us to ourselves, we are fools. Look around us. God leaves people to do evil things every day. God does not change everyone into well behaved children, obedient and fruitful and loving. God expects us to participate in our healing and our understanding, like the man by the pool, who allowed discouragement and ridicule keep him out of the pool and dependant upon the whims of others to help him. Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat, man! Make the effort to turn away from everything that separates you from the living water, and get to it. Trust ME, not your condition. Climb in and start over.” I can just hear Jesus’ voice: “If you don’t do it, you can just sit there and die.”
The Bible tells us there WILL be a day of wrath. 6For he will repay according to each one's deeds: 7to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.
Wrath comes to those who insist on misbehaving without God, without faith in Christ. Wrath to those who mock the power of the Holy Spirit, and deny there are demons of this world. And some will be judged I think, for failing to believe and failing to participate in life and hope, when they have heard and received understanding and knowledge. To their peril they miss out on the abundant life that could be theirs now and in eternity. And God loses another co-worker for righteousness. When it would seem God has given up on us, I consider again God’s primary character: love. Love in grace and love in truth. Love that calls all people to him, yet insists on a heart for righteousness from those who come.
1 comment:
I think the hardest thing about being a mom is knowing when to help my children vs. when to let them "learn their lessons the hard way." It can be as simple as forgetting their homework or lunch bag. Usually when they have to suffer the consequences of a bad choice, they won't make that mistake again. But it is hard not to want to rescue them.
I believe that God allows us to suffer the consequences of our own bad choices. And I believe it hurts him to see us make those choices.
I remember teaching a youth Sunday School class one time and telling them "God doesn't give us the comandments and all these other guidelines for right living just to make us unhappy. God gives us these to MAKE US HAPPY! He knows that living our lives in this way will ensure that our lives are most fulfilling and filled with joy."
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