"But let us who live in the light THINK CLEARLY, protected by the body armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. For God decided to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us." I Thessalonians 5:8-9
But now God has shown us a different way of being right in His sight--not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. Romans 3: 21,22a;24a;25a
I was reading an article in a popular Christian magazine written from a popular Christian organization. The author was talking about how awful America is and how God's people need to repent, fast and pray to avert His judgement to America. As I was reading I began to think of Germany, the country where I now reside as a missionary. The sin in Germany is beyond imagination. I have seen men having sex in an open vehicle on the street; children run the streets while their parents wile their days away in the bar; and the prevalent thinking is that there is no God, that we ourselves are the god's of the earth and nature is to be worshiped. I do not see God pouring His wrath down upon this nation. I see that everyone has a home; that there are very few homeless people; and that the average man is quite content.
Germany was once a "Christian" nation. There are massive houses built in His honor everywhere. The nation, as a whole, has slipped away from the days of Luther, yet I have not seen His wrath poured out. I believe this is because He has ALREADY POURED OUT HIS WRATH ON HIS SON, JESUS. When Jesus died on the cross, this satisfied His anger.
I have a sense that some Christian leaders in the U.S. use sin and the "wrath of God" to promote their books and conferences. I saw one conference where a prophet had predicted a great earthquake to hit on a certain date. The date prophesided was BEFORE their scheduled conference. So, the leader's decided to cancel the dates and re-schedule the conference BEFORE the proposed earthquake, so they could fast and pray to avert God's wrath and stop the earth-quake. How smart is that? This create's hype; this makes the people feel as if THEY have the power to stop earth-quakes; and I'm pretty sure it also brings in a lot of money to the "prophet's".
As the scripture says in I Thessalonians, let us THINK CLEARLY! This is not an essay to comment on the reason's for natural disaster's. I am merely stating that I believe God's wrath was satisfied in Jesus Christ. Now, He opens His arms in love to a stubborn, sinful people and says, "Come to me. I am knocking at your door."
The presence of evil, and destruction gives us a contrast to the love of God. Without evil, we can't see the holiness of God. In disaster, we discover our NEED of Him. He uses everything to draw us and to help us to see who HE is as compared to darkness.
I would like to suggest that Americans get about the business of magnifying the name of Jesus, of becoming FASCINATED with Jesus as opposed to fighting fights and supposed conspiracy's against His church. We all want a cause and we all want to feel significant. Our cause should be CHRIST ALONE.
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