Pure Grace is a book by my Pastor, Clark Whitten. Click here for the full archive of Bloggable Grace to date.
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From today’s Quotable Grace post over at PureGraceOnline.com:
Contrary to popular religious opinion, God is not angry toward me and never will be. Not in the least. He was angry, but no longer. All of His anger – sense of violation because of sin – was poured out and extinguished on His dear Son.” (pg. 20 Pure Grace)
Let’s Talk Grace
Obviously I am addressing this statement toward Believers. Many believe God is angry at us most of the time or at least is in a constant state of disapproval toward us. This simply is not true! It may be a handy concept to use if one’s goal is behavior modification, but that was not God’s goal in His redemptive plan. He loves us with an everlasting love and that love will transform us from the inside out. If our anger never results in righteous acts why would we think God’s anger would produce righteous behavior in us. Bottom line–God is not angry toward us who believe.
Knowing that God isn’t angry with you, would that knowledge encourage you in your worship and times of prayer?
This post is about to look dramatically different than it did in the first draft.
See, I wrote a really cool real-life experience I had with the Lord where, without anger the Lord simply said, “No” to me. It was actually a very personal situation.
I have a tendency to just lay everything out there so when I got through writing my bloggerly side was cool to go, but my spirit was disquieted. It was a great post (in my opinion) but something was not right. So I hit “save draft” instead of “publish” last night and waited.
Now, about 15 hours later, I am certain the Lord is simply saying that the experience that I was writing about last night is just between He and I. I think that is awesome. Every relationship has its exclusive/intimate moments … why not with God?
So cool. Another spiritually intimate moment to keep as a treasure within my heart.
I can share that the intent was to testify that I have not ever felt shamed or condemned by the Lord. After accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, He has told me “no” more than a few times. He has “reasoned” (not argued) with me even when I tried to argue with Him. That said, He totally picked on me when I tried to quote CS Lewis to Him… but even there, I am not sure how, but I knew He was chuckling at me. I laughed the whole way through that “rebuke.” I still smile when I remember that.
When it comes to the believer, God is too busy loving, serving, shepherding, discipling (not disciplining) his own. He isn’t petulant or manipulatively co-dependent. There is no such thing as “the silent treatment” from God for the believer.
He is present, He is available, He is speaking … and He knows your name (and life story) by Heart.
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MORE: Click here to read all my Bloggable Grace posts to date. You can also purchase Pure Grace here.
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