Day 2440 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Psalm 89:14 NIV
One of the biggest questions that those outside (and even some inside) of our faith have is about God's wrath. He's supposed to be a loving God right? So many people talk about how much He loves us and how He is such a merciful and forgiving Father. So why are people punished for their sins? Why does hell need to exist? Why are many going to be turned away from eternal peace in Heaven?
Because God is good. He is the definition of good. And if He compromised with our fallen nature then His goodness wouldn't be complete. He would be just as wishy washy as we all tend to be. If He allowed people to get by with doing anything they chose to do without repercussion then He wouldn't be a fair or just God. Many can't reconcile this idea of justice with our worldly view of love. They see this idea of being punished for our sins as evidence that maybe God isn't as loving and kind and understanding as many say He is.
I think the problem is that this worldly sense of entitlement has infected the very marrow of our bones. We've gotten it in our minds that He owes us something. We think that we deserve His love and kindness because the Bible talks about how much He loves us. We think that we have the right to do anything we want to do because we can always fall back on His forgiveness. But what we fail to understand is that we're not entitled to anything.
In fact, what we truly deserve is the eternal suffering that our sins have earned. That's probably the biggest stumbling block that we've created in our society. We've learned to see our sins as minor little offenses that aren't really that dangerous. We've fallen for this idea that our broken human ways aren't quite so bad because everyone has made mistakes. Everyone has fallen short. Everyone gets things wrong. So surely a couple little slip-ups aren't that bad!
But it's not just a couple little offenses. Each of us get things wrong every single day. We are all born into sin and we only dive deeper into that darkness as we get older. Sin is a part of our fallen human existence and no matter how good we may be at ignoring or debating that fact, our sins have separated us from God and our only hope is His goodness. Our only hope is the forgiveness and salvation that He chose to offer in Christ Jesus.
We have to learn to see things from His perspective rather than our own. Our way of seeing things tells us that we're not that messed up, that we shouldn't have to deal with responsibility, and that we still deserve love and mercy because we want them. But God sees everything through His perfect definition of right and wrong. As this verse is telling us, righteousness and justice are the very foundation of everything that He says He is. So it's not that He doesn't love us but that He has to be a just and righteous God because anything less than that wouldn't work.
Friends, the fact is that we're all filthy. We're all sinners who fall short of His example and His expectations every single day. The fact that He's even willing to forgive us is proof of His amazing grace and inconceivable love for us. We all deserve hell for the things we've done. But His compassion for us is evident in the cross. He chose to open the door that our sins had shut so that we could have the hope of Heaven as our eternal home. That hope is something that none of us should have.
Yet, because of His love for us it's something that's available to everyone who will humble themselves and turn and repent of their sins and accept His gift of rebirth and renewal into a life spent serving Him rather than our sinful desires. Make no mistake, He is the definition of love and mercy, but He is also the definition of justice and righteousness. And He cannot back down on any of the above because He wouldn't be God if He did.
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