18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
-- Romans 1:18-25
Ever since Sunday school, i've been constantly taught that God is loving, God is good, kind, merciful, and forgives us of our sins. And while that is true, i can't help but think that maybe it's not all that complete. God is also to be feared, and consequences can be pretty crazy when God gets angry at people. Like this passage- God just gets so fed up with people who decide to live in sin, He lets them do the things that would lead to their downfall. He lets them succumb to their carnal and human desires, and that's scary. The world says that i should "live how i want", "make my own decisions", because "it's my life". Negative. it's not my life, but God's.
What if God left me? I know i sin day to day, but yet he still continues to forgive me and love me. It's such a simple thing to say, but once i try to understand it, it just boggles my mind. I can't live however i want to live because that's what's best for me. Verse 24 says that God gave them over to sin. the world conditions us to live for the self, and fit in some good deeds here and there because it's "the right thing to do", but where does God fit into this picture? Sure, it's nice to do whatever i want, but if i want to call myself a child of God, i can't at the same time call myself a child of the world.
so right now. what's it gonna be. God or the world? its a question that i deal day to day with.
It's a good thing God is nothing like us wimpy humans who change their minds as often as they change their underwear, because if He was anything like us, He'd probably have given up on us a longggg time ago. How awful and terrifying to have such a powerful God simply not care about you or me? :/
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