Maybe this will pull some of you out of the woodwork.
God is not mad at you.
Let me qualify that remark with - if you are a Christian.
People take exception with me when I say that, but I defy you to show me where God is mad at the Christian.
Is He disappointed at times? Let me answer this way: Do you believe God is omniscient to the point that He knows all future events? If so, then how could He even be disappointed about what He already knows you're going to do? In fact, if He knows how many times it's going to take you to get it right, then that's just one more step in the right direction. "51 down, 49 more to go for Rob. He's finally over the halfway point. Not that I AM surprised."
Does He discipline? Of course, see Hebrews 12, but not out of anger. Was He mad at the Jewish people? Yes, and in fact He killed many of them. But they didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit and atonement of Christ. Also, His wrath will pour out on the unsaved on judgment day. But again, if you are 'saved', what you are saved from is His wrath. Now and then.
People take exception with me when I say that, but I defy you to show me where God is mad at the Christian.
Is He disappointed at times? Let me answer this way: Do you believe God is omniscient to the point that He knows all future events? If so, then how could He even be disappointed about what He already knows you're going to do? In fact, if He knows how many times it's going to take you to get it right, then that's just one more step in the right direction. "51 down, 49 more to go for Rob. He's finally over the halfway point. Not that I AM surprised."
Does He discipline? Of course, see Hebrews 12, but not out of anger. Was He mad at the Jewish people? Yes, and in fact He killed many of them. But they didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit and atonement of Christ. Also, His wrath will pour out on the unsaved on judgment day. But again, if you are 'saved', what you are saved from is His wrath. Now and then.
The saddest part about all of this is that many of us go through life believing God, like in this picture, is mad at us and is just waiting to hammer us for doing wrong. The beauty of the gospel is that ALL of our sins are paid for. That means the ones in the past AND the ones we haven't even committed yet.
Start living with that joy.
I need to further elaborate on my point about God's omniscience necessarily resulting in a lack of disappointment in our sinful behavior.
ReplyDeleteWhen I try to cogitate about an infinite God having an emotion, I'm going to come up horribly short of the reality. So,when I say God isn't disappointed with our mistakes - due to the fact that He already knew they were going to occur - I may be thinking about it wrong. It's possible that God (feels, understands, knows) something akin to disappointment (maybe it's frustration or sadness) at SOME POINT in the time line of forever regarding our sin. It may just not be at the point where it actually happens in time - as we experience it.