When people start saying things about having been on the receiving end of God’s wrath, the silly part of me wants to look deep into their eyes and whisper, “Jesus? Is that you?” Now, I readily admit, the more I learn, the more I realize I have to learn but this talk of God sending His wrath on select people, nations, groups, etc, is confusing and very religious sounding.  I say this because I know I have read that God poured out His wrath, once and for all, on Jesus.  He is the one who took all of God’s wrath because we couldn’t.  He is the one who took care of the sin/separation problem, one time, for good.  Our part is to accept what He did for us- easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Even John the Baptist said in John 1:1 “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  And Jesus Himself, just before dying, said, “It is finished.” Did He lie?  Was there a measure of wrath left over because God said, “Nah, you’re gonna have to pay for some part of this!”?

Why is it that some suppose God is still angry and doling out bouts of wrath here and there?  Why would He do that if He already took care of the sin problem and all we have to do is accept it and repent for all the relational sin we find ourselves in?  Is it just me, or would this not make Him mentally unstable?  To one moment, say, “Ok, your sin is causing separation between us and you can’t do anything to fix this.  I want a relationship with you that is unhindered by your sin, so I will do this for you and fix it once and for all, just accept what I have freely given you and you’re in.”, then, you do something wrong and He becomes explosively angry and pours out a measure of wrath on you to teach you a lesson.  Does this not sound off to anyone else?  He either poured out His wrath, once and for all on Jesus, or, He left some back, tucked away in some cauldron, only to pour it out as needed when we jack things up.  Which is it?  Now, of course there is going to be judgement on the last day but if you’re reading this, I doubt that moment is upon you right now.  Plus, that is a whole other subject that people have misconstrued…

I’m not saying that there aren’t consequences to sin. Go on, go and try to punch your brother in the face and a consequence could very well be that he knocks your lights out.  Go and rob a bank, and you might find some nice folk rushing at you with guns, eager to give you an ill-fitting pair of silver bracelets with free room and board for several years.

Of course, we get it wrong sometimes, but God isn’t sitting on His throne far away, just waiting for us to mess up so He can point the finger and punish us.  So many forget that we have a very real enemy who seeks to kill, steal and destroy and he is not too shabby at his job.

Sometimes we invite things on ourselves by our words and actions and thus, invite the enemy into our midst to have legal right to wreak havoc on and in our lives.  Sometimes, he just comes in illegally but he is there and he’s not sleeping on the job of ‘kill, steal and destroy’.

God can and will use the trials that we go through for His glory but to say He is causing them because He is still angry about something, that’s just not right.  When I think of my miscarriages, my infant nephew dying, my friends 2-year-old son being mowed down by an SUV in a parking lot by a woman eager for a particular parking space and dying, the very last thing I can imagine is that the God I am in relationship with, would do this to teach any of us a lesson.  Who would want to run to a God like that?  That’s not loving at all.  We have an enemy, guys, but glory to God, we have a God who is so much bigger and stronger than our enemy could ever be and, our enemy has already been defeated! We have but to just spend time getting to know Him, growing deeper and deeper in intimacy with Him.  There’s so much to know about Him, so much to love.  He really is good.