Blessing or Wrath?

(these ideas were also refined and helped by a Matt Chandler sermon)

Romans 1:
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Ask anyone (or at least almost anyone) and they will say America is blessed.  We are such a blessed country because of the freedoms we have here.  We are such a blessed country because of the wealth we have here.  We are such a blessed country because of the health we experience here.  Compared to the majority of the rest of the world we far exceed them all in everyone of these areas.  But are these things blessings?  What is a blessing?  I’m not sure myself sometimes... I believe all of those things can be blessings.  But I am starting to believe that in America, not in all individual cases, but as a whole they are indeed curses; the wrath of God Almighty.

Romans says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.  That we know things about God because He has shown it to us clearly.  And that although we know this, we do not honor Him or give thanks to Him.  We ignore Him, suppress the truth about what we know of Him, or outright mock Him.  Verse 24 is the scary verse - therefore, God gives us up to the lusts of our hearts... wait what?  That’s not what I was taught...  You mean He curses us with poor health right?  He punishes us by killing our business income?  No, He gives us the desire of our hearts - namely whatever it is we are pursuing that is not Him.  So if your love for money and prosperity is an idol in your heart that you desire more than Christ, God does not take away your money to pour out His wrath... He gives up on you and let’s you pursue money, quite possibly to the result of becoming exceedingly wealthy.  Then we make it even worse by believing that this is a blessing when in reality it is God’s wrath and we continue in ignorance thinking we are close to God while we are in fact very far from Him.

For those who are seeking Christ and have struggles with loving other things more than Him, sometimes God’s mercy is suffering.  Sometimes what we perceive here as God’s wrath and judgement is in fact his mercy, loving us to turn us to him and sometimes what we perceive as His blessing is in fact His wrath as He has given us up to the lesser things we desire.

Verse 21 says that we become futile (trifling; frivolous; unimportant) in our thinking.  What are the things we think about?  As embarrassing as it may be, I’ll tell you that I often day dream about campers, boats and cars.  I love camping and I like some of the campers that are out there and I want them.  I love boating and there are lots of boats I would like to have.  I also wouldn’t mind having a suburban... None of which is a bad thing.  But I find myself day dreaming about these things.  Wasting blocks of my life thinking about obtaining those possessions.  What futile thinking.  Things that in 100 years will be wasting away in a junk yard.  Spending too much time thinking about and pursuing ownership of these things is the very definition of verse 23 - exchanging the glory of God for images resembling mortal man.  And I do it alot!

I pray that God does not turn me over to my hearts desire.  Because my heart does not desire what it should!  I pray that He would mercifully change my heart to desire what is worthy.  

I think this also kind of goes along with this post... These are two are the scariest verses in the bible to me.  

Luke 8:
13And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

I do not want to be someone who receives the word with joy, but falls away in times of testing.  To believe in Christ when I’m making my monthly bills, saving for retirement and getting good checkups at the Doctor’s only to fall away when my plans go awry.  There are lots of people, I pray I am not one, who are professing Christians who do not have salvation in Jesus Christ (note: I am not the judge, don’t want to be the judge, and do not try to figure out who they are, but they do exist).  Very similar to that is the one in 14 who hears, possibly accepts with joy as well, but is then choked out by the cares of this world.  That one is very real and dangerous as well.  We all deal with that risk on a daily, hourly, constant basis.  I’m not sure exactly the details and how it lines up with a few other verses, but I hope with everything I have in me that I will not in the end be one of those described in Matthew:

Matthew:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'

I think the scariest thing in here is that these people described appear to think they were genuine followers of Christ.  When combined with the Luke 8 verses, we aren’t always talking about people who rejected Christ, or who accepted and then knowingly changed their minds.  We are talking about people who thought they followed Christ and did not.  How does that happen?  I think it happens in part because we have plenty of teaching that is not biblical.  Preachers who don’t preach truth but preach what we want to hear and deceive us into believing we have salvation when we do not.  When we believe in a god who is not the God described in the bible but don’t know it.  If that doesn’t motivate me to search the scripture and humbly plead with God to have mercy on me, to give me wisdom, then I don’t know what will...

Children Playing with Fire

Luke 9:
52And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. 53But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55But he turned and rebuked them. 56And they went on to another village.

There is more than one thing, as usual, you can pull from this scripture.  There is hope for me even though I have been following Christ for some time and still mess it up a lot.  This verse is in Luke after the disciples have been in Christ’s presence for some time, having seen many miracles and yet they still don’t understand Him.  I mean, c’mon, when did Jesus ever do something like that?  He time and time again had compassion on the people in His midst.  And yet His disciples are full of judgement and wrath.

I picture a child with a new toy when I read this verse.  May be a 10 year old boy got a rocket for Christmas.  Daddy, can I hit the button, can I, can I, can I... watch it fly into the sky, please, now, now, please let me.  The disciples have seen Jesus perform miracles.  They have seen His power.  They have also already been sent out to preach, heal, cast out demons and so they know they have been given extraordinary power as well.  This verse is pretty soon after they were sent out and exercised this power on their own for the first time.  They are like kids with a new toy.  In a way it’s almost funny.

But what a lack of love.  No grace, no mercy, no love.  “Jesus they rejected you, let’s exterminate them from the face of the earth.”  How can you have a reaction like that after hanging out with Christ for so long?  We (I) do it all the time.  There will be a time of judgement when the Father does pour out wrath on those who live in rebellion against Him.  But Christ came to seek and to save the lost.  We preach a gospel of hope and mercy, not one of fear and forced submission.  

I wonder what that rebuke was like... “How about I tell fire to come down and consume you!?... I will be crucified in a couple of weeks and you will reject me as well.  Do you want me to obliterate you?  How about I pick one moment in your life, as you reject me and put aside my mercy and my patience and judge you?  Do you not understand me at all yet?”  (He actually does ask them that question many times in the gospels).

It makes no sense that when we remember the grace that Christ has poured out to us, and is still pouring out, that we do not in turn pour it out onto others... then we would see God using us to draw people to Himself.

2011 & Spiritual Growth

I have to start this blog post with a short note, lest you think I am complaining or have lost perspective on how ‘good’ I have it:  I have had an easy life.  And not only when compared to those in other countries who have nothing, but compared to people in America as well.  I don’t even know the beginning of hardship.

But as far as my life has gone so far - 2011, and specifically the 3rd quarter of 2011, was tough.  I think it was the most difficult few months of my life.  The ‘highlight’ of this period was Dad’s trip to the ICU after going into septic shock.  I still don’t think I comprehend the weightiness of how serious this situation actually was.  Other events within this 3 month period included trips to the ER with Tiffany, Zac and myself all making visits, in one degree of severity or another.  Most of them included the factor of not knowing if the situation was serious or not, and my visit was merely an inconvenience.  

In all of these I was left with lots of time and lots of prayers and plenty of thinking about Christ, my faith, my circumstances and how exactly they all relate to one another.  It’s been just over the last 18 months or so I’ve slowly started noticing that even though I did not desire to hold such beliefs, my beliefs were very unbiblical.  My prayers and my thoughts treat God as if He owes me something, as if He were a genie to answer my whims when I desire.  I am thankful these lies have been brought to my attention.  

God is good!  But not because Dad didn’t die, Tiffany & Eli are healthy, Zac was ok and I didn’t cut my finger off...  Any of these, or even all of these, could have gone the other way and my hope is that if they had I would still praise Him and love Him.  It is so easy, even in the good churches and around the right people to start believing God is good because He heals (which He does do) or because He provides (which he does do), etc.  But Christ’s death on the cross did not buy my health, it did not buy my being able to make my mortgage payment, it did not buy my comfort.  It bought my salvation.  My hope is in a future date when Christ will restore!  He paid my debt so that I could have Him.  A relationship with my creator.  I wish I understood this more than I do.  If my greatest joy is Christ, then my greatest joy can NEVER be taken from me, because that relationship on the cross has been purchased once and for all.  But when I am honest, I find that my greatest joy is not Christ... it’s the other things I have listed and those things were not purchased on the cross, they can at any moment be taken from me.  And until they become less so that Christ can become more I am at risk of losing what I treasure most in this life, which is not the reality of a child of God.  I know this is where my joy lies because while I wish I could say with Paul that I rejoice in my afflictions because they bring me closer to God - I do not.  I have a heart that is far from God and loves me more than Him.  And I am hesitant to ask God to change my heart because I fear the ways in which He will do it.  I agree with part of a sermon I heard by Matt Chandler when he made the point that what we often times think are blessings are in fact judgement from God.  I think my fear that my comfortable life is seducing me away from Jesus is growing stronger than my fear of affliction, which of course scares me :) but I hope that it will continue.

I am becoming desperately more aware of my need for Christ despite the appearance of what the world would call a ‘good person.’  For that I am thankful.  (If you have any interest in listening to someone preach the Gospel in every word with passion and love listen to Matt Chandler who I have to credit for a lot my maturing in this area as I listen to his sermons.)


Casting Crowns - Praise You in This Storm
I was sure by now
God You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

And I'll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

Habakkuk 3:17-19
“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
  nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
  and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
  and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
   I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
   he makes my feet like the deer’s;
  he makes me tread on my high places.”