Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Pentecost 90 Letting God Get His Mind Around Us.
Pentecost 90 Letting God Get His Mind Around Us
Just as there is a difference between God’s wrath and man’s wrath there is also a difference between God’s judgment and man’s judgment. But first we need to revisit the whole issue of wrath. After that we will look at judgment.
God’s wrath is born out of His Holiness and perfection. It is not a planned wrath but rather the reaction of His sheer power of perfection and holiness that cannot but reject sin and evil. It is His nature to be wrathful toward anything evil and its resulting behavior. God is the way He is. He will not and cannot change. He was the same before Creation as He will be after Jesus’ return when there will be a new Heaven and a new earth. In Him perfection and pure holiness are more powerful than their opposites, sin and evil. They arrive later on earth’s scene, after Creation, and are in total contradiction to His nature.
In stark contrast man’s wrath is born in pride, fear, malice, revenge, vindictiveness, hate, irrationality and uneven application. Man’s wrath is the result of sin. It is the imperfect extension of his aloneness, fear and pride. Sin is the spiritual disease of the individual mind, and heart choosing to think, analyze, decide and act apart from God. The devil used this process to lure, tempt and persuade Adam and Eve to accept it as their way to live. This process opened the floodgates of evil spirits, the devil’s conspiratorial tools to separate mankind from God and in turn to separate people from one another until their destiny is total isolation from God and an eternity of fear and aloneness for each person.
This isolating condition and its violent internal damage is described in vivid detail in Genesis 3. The massive torrent of evil began with man’s willingness to compromise with the evil one, then rationalize and justify the process. In their momentary flirtation with the devil, they and all their succeeding descendants were burned. They experienced fear for the first time and found themselves hiding from God and looking for someone to blame for their isolated condition from which they found they could not escape. The escalation of sin and evil enveloped all of mankind from that point on. The wrath of God was experienced in guilt, aloneness and separation on every level, never understanding why.
The whole Old Testament can be viewed as man’s inevitable journey into the pit of Hell. Also however, in its pages the blurry vision of a yet-to-come single deliverer, a Messiah, progressively emerging within the thorny thicket of man’s chosen self-destruction to offer release from that awful inevitability. On the horizon of this lost wilderness the deliverer appears. He becomes a clear picture of the actual presence of God, Jesus the Messiah, God the Son. His appearance, life and teachings make up the enthralling personal portrait presented in the New Testament.
There too the greatest historical achievement in history is recorded, the neutralization of God’s wrath by the sacrificial shedding of the perfect Son of God’s blood. He took the punishment, the judgment for all mankind’s sin, the wrath of God and bore its penalty, the death sentence, in our place. This He did for all humanity in mind, heart and body through perfect faith in His Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 1:18-3:20 is the summary of the depths of the fall of mankind into the lost wilderness east of Eden far from God’s presence, a wilderness from which we have been rescued by Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.
The only way we can avert the wrath of God is to receive the grace and love of Jesus Christ by accepting Him as our personal Savior and Lord by faith. It is then and only then that the human mind, heart and spirit have the ability to identify not only the love of God but that which prevents that love from reaching us within. We must realize the depth that sinful fear and pride have taken us and then receive the relational lifeline the Lord throws to each of us for the rescue. Anything less will only end up in aloneness, isolation from forgiveness and love and alienation from the One person who gave His life so that we can be whole again.
When Jesus asks us to take up our cross He means to accept Him by faith day by day in repentance and thanksgiving. In His forgiveness He frees us from the burden of our personal sin and we are enabled to bring His name before the world for its release. How much we have been given and how much we have to share.
Think spiritually, think Jesus, think Holy Spirit.
Next, judgment. Stay tuned…….
Just as there is a difference between God’s wrath and man’s wrath there is also a difference between God’s judgment and man’s judgment. But first we need to revisit the whole issue of wrath. After that we will look at judgment.
God’s wrath is born out of His Holiness and perfection. It is not a planned wrath but rather the reaction of His sheer power of perfection and holiness that cannot but reject sin and evil. It is His nature to be wrathful toward anything evil and its resulting behavior. God is the way He is. He will not and cannot change. He was the same before Creation as He will be after Jesus’ return when there will be a new Heaven and a new earth. In Him perfection and pure holiness are more powerful than their opposites, sin and evil. They arrive later on earth’s scene, after Creation, and are in total contradiction to His nature.
In stark contrast man’s wrath is born in pride, fear, malice, revenge, vindictiveness, hate, irrationality and uneven application. Man’s wrath is the result of sin. It is the imperfect extension of his aloneness, fear and pride. Sin is the spiritual disease of the individual mind, and heart choosing to think, analyze, decide and act apart from God. The devil used this process to lure, tempt and persuade Adam and Eve to accept it as their way to live. This process opened the floodgates of evil spirits, the devil’s conspiratorial tools to separate mankind from God and in turn to separate people from one another until their destiny is total isolation from God and an eternity of fear and aloneness for each person.
This isolating condition and its violent internal damage is described in vivid detail in Genesis 3. The massive torrent of evil began with man’s willingness to compromise with the evil one, then rationalize and justify the process. In their momentary flirtation with the devil, they and all their succeeding descendants were burned. They experienced fear for the first time and found themselves hiding from God and looking for someone to blame for their isolated condition from which they found they could not escape. The escalation of sin and evil enveloped all of mankind from that point on. The wrath of God was experienced in guilt, aloneness and separation on every level, never understanding why.
The whole Old Testament can be viewed as man’s inevitable journey into the pit of Hell. Also however, in its pages the blurry vision of a yet-to-come single deliverer, a Messiah, progressively emerging within the thorny thicket of man’s chosen self-destruction to offer release from that awful inevitability. On the horizon of this lost wilderness the deliverer appears. He becomes a clear picture of the actual presence of God, Jesus the Messiah, God the Son. His appearance, life and teachings make up the enthralling personal portrait presented in the New Testament.
There too the greatest historical achievement in history is recorded, the neutralization of God’s wrath by the sacrificial shedding of the perfect Son of God’s blood. He took the punishment, the judgment for all mankind’s sin, the wrath of God and bore its penalty, the death sentence, in our place. This He did for all humanity in mind, heart and body through perfect faith in His Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 1:18-3:20 is the summary of the depths of the fall of mankind into the lost wilderness east of Eden far from God’s presence, a wilderness from which we have been rescued by Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.
The only way we can avert the wrath of God is to receive the grace and love of Jesus Christ by accepting Him as our personal Savior and Lord by faith. It is then and only then that the human mind, heart and spirit have the ability to identify not only the love of God but that which prevents that love from reaching us within. We must realize the depth that sinful fear and pride have taken us and then receive the relational lifeline the Lord throws to each of us for the rescue. Anything less will only end up in aloneness, isolation from forgiveness and love and alienation from the One person who gave His life so that we can be whole again.
When Jesus asks us to take up our cross He means to accept Him by faith day by day in repentance and thanksgiving. In His forgiveness He frees us from the burden of our personal sin and we are enabled to bring His name before the world for its release. How much we have been given and how much we have to share.
Think spiritually, think Jesus, think Holy Spirit.
Next, judgment. Stay tuned…….
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