Early this morning the Holy Spirit made it clear to me what my
subject for today and tomorrow would be. I will spare you the details of the experience,
but God has a way of changing our plans and He never ceases to amaze me when He
does that. Even when I told Him that I did not want to talk about tomorrow’s
subject because it is part of my next book, His answer was tomorrow is not
today, then He moved on about the order of the day.
He reminded me that I was not always living a balance life with
His wrath and love and there was a time I was truly afraid of Him. That is
true. Even without Him saying it, I know some Christians might misunderstand my
view on God’s wrath from yesterday’s post. For instance, I know Christians who
have never reached a point in their relationship with God where they learned to
fear God’s wrath. They simply feel and think that God’s love for each of us and
mainly Christians, automatically cancel out His wrath. I also met someone who has the audacity to
believe the wrath of God is related to the Old Testament and there is no longer
anything to fear. This idea came from such a long time and eloquent Christian.
When we have an incorrect view of God’s wrath, we do not grow spiritually
in the Lord. Furthermore, these incorrect views of God’s wrath are not Biblical.
If His wrath is a thing of the past how can you learn to fear Him? How can you
learn to give Him the reverence that is due to Him? If you do not have a
healthy dose of reverence for Him, then everything is permissible. If the
Salvation you have received did not teach you or led you there, then you can
assume you have a defective salvation, or some kind of man made one.
Another thing that is true as well is that if you live your
whole life in fear of God’s wrath, you will never know Him and your life will
be like the servant who received one talent in the parable of the talent in Matthew
25:14-30. True Salvation from God takes you to a progression where there is an
awareness of His wrath and you do not quite know what to make of it. You fear Him because of what you read of His wrath, and in your
mind it is a negative attribute. Even
when you keep telling yourself that it cannot be a negative attribute because
in God there is no blemish, but your attitude toward God will reveal that your
heart cannot buy into it. Then as you
grow in grace, you will stop being scared because you find that He is a gentle
and loving father who cares for you deeply and want only what is best for you.
As you continue a steadfast walk, you grow in your intimacy with
Him; you will find you have left behind the stage where you were scared of Him.
This is a normal progression of our walk with Him and it shows us we have
actually worked toward a real relationship with Him. Then you find that, the more
you live and walk in the spirit and remain at His feet through a life of
surrender and abiding, there is no fear in you at all in regards to His wrath. But
this lack of fear comes from living a life of oneness with Him. You have
acquired a balance because you know Him intimately and the wrath you used to
fear so much is just one of His Holy attributes.
I still remember when I discovered the harmony that exists
between God’s love, wrath and holiness it was a time where I felt I was being
wasted in a never ending holding pattern. But even though I felt this way and I
could not explain God’s purpose for this stage of my life ---- after the
wilderness time----I decided not to take matters into my own hands to make things
happen with my own understanding. I felt,
the safer investment was to trust Him through it all. I kept praying for the strength
to remain steadfast and persevere. So
when He showed me the beauty of having acquired the understanding of these
attributes of His, and how they merged within me as if the knowledge had become
part of who I am in Him, I remember saying “WOW! I uttered, “How did I get there?”
I uttered those words simply because I still remembered vividly,
the day when God gave me the choice to either move forward in an intimate
relationship with Him personally or remain in a life of second hand Christianity.
I still remember how afraid I was. Like the Israelites in Exodus 20 who did not
want to deal with God directly, I felt if I move forward in a close
relationship with Him I would die. In my mind, all I kept thinking was that His
wrath was going to cause my death. What
compelled me to go forward and choose Him, was that my heart could not take the
idea that I was no better than the Israelites.
I kept thinking, not choosing to go forward with God directly
has not been a good thing for the Israelites at all. I also remembered how they
rejected dealing with Him directly in first Samuel from chapter 8 to 10. When I
read those chapters, I recalled how God was hurt by their rejection and my
heart melted. In my fear, even though I did not have much bible knowledge, I
said to myself, “but God’s word said in one place in the Old Testament and
another place in the New Testament that their story has been recorded so that
we can avoid making the same mistake, I think I need to apply it here.” This
was me, thinking in the span of a few minutes but as it was happening to me it
felt like a lifetime. I then said okay God, even though you are going to kill
me by the time I get to you, but here I come.
It turned out He did not want to kill me, He simply wanted an up
close and personal relationship with me and He used His word to test my
obedience. Years later I understood much more. Going to God the Father for a
personal relationship in intimacy, is the goal of Salvation. In 1 Peter 3:18 we are told that Christ died He might bring us to
God. Bringing us to God is much more than saying the sinner prayer and activities.
Going to God has to start with us truly going to Him “in the spirit”
God’s wrath is a response to our disobedience and since He loves
us with a passionate and jealous love and since His holiness cannot tolerate
sin, then His wrath is perfect and always justified.
P. S
I am still sick, it took me all day to write this and I hope you can make sense of what I wrote down.
