Once we were also ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds. We had made God angry, and we were going to be punished like everyone else. But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God’s wonderful kindness is what saves you.
Ephesians 2: 3-5 (CEV)
God cannot condone sin. In fact, sin makes Him angry. His wrath, though, it tempered by His mercy and love. This devotion explores why God is angry, the punishment determined to appease His wrath, and how His mercy and love can rectify that.
Nuggets
- Sin, which leads to wrath, is the polar opposite of the Spirit — with which we are supposed to be filled.
- Sovereign God gets to decide crimes and punishments.
- There is hope for us because God is rich in mercy (Eph. 2: 4).
- Mercy comes out of God’s love, which is His character (I Jn. 4: 8).
My Ladies and I were talking yesterday about how rich each verse in Ephesians is. That being said, I am going to be daring and try to tackle three verses in this devotion. These three verses show the foundation on which the plan of salvation is built.
Let's Put It into Context
First, we need to see what wrath is. Wrath is extreme, fierce anger. It is also a vengeance or punishment that comes as a result of the anger.
We’ve talked before that the person who is performing the act of vengeance does not always feel like they are the one who “started it.” Their act is a response.
Deuteronomy 32: 35 says, “I [God] will take revenge; I will pay them back” (NLT). We aren’t supposed to let our anger row to the point where we retaliate. God calls dibs on the wrath and vengeance.
God’s Wrath
“Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2: 3 RSV).
Next, we need to see what God’s wrath is. Romans 1: 18 says, “For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (HCSB). Hmmm. Too many churchy words.
Let’s try this one. “God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known” (Rom. 1: 18 GNT). That is better.
Now, let’s see what we can see in Ephesians 2. Verse 3 says that “… we were by nature children of wrath …” (Eph. 2: 3 RSV). If we look at it from the lens of sin, it starts to make sense.
God had to have been angry when mankind decided we weren’t going to follow His laws and commandments. We know He was angry enough to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.
When sin entered mankind, we went from being children of God to children of wrath. We started being controlled by Satan and filled with the lusts of the flesh. Those included sexual immorality, impurity, homosexuality, idolatry/covetousness, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, greed, drunkenness, filthiness, and all impurity to name a few (Gal. 5: 19-21; Eph. 5: 3-6; and I Cor. 6: 9-10).
That is a pretty long list, and what is there are doozies. It doesn’t just stop there those. Think about the fallout because of the commission of those sins.
When you think about those being polar opposite of the Spirit — which we are supposed to be filled with — we can see where the wrath comes into play. The relationships that God wanted turned into alienation.
Isn’t that so like us? We get something good and end up mucking it up. We perverted His truth.
God’s Punishment
So, we messed up and deserve the wrath. That means we also deserve the punishment.
Romans 6: 23 says, “For the wages of sin is death …” (ESV). Ouch. Since there are many opponents to capital punishment, I am sure many of them see the Bible outdated because of this.
However, this is what the Bible says. “Now let me remind you, brothers, of what the Gospel really is, for it has not changed …” (I Cor. 15: 1 LB). It also says, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you” (Deut. 4: 2 NASB).
God is Sovereign God. He gets to decide crimes and punishments. We don’t get to rewrite the Bible to make it more politically correct. God’s ways are not the ways of this world.
To read Why Do We Try to Rewrite Scripture?, click the button below.
In His infinite wisdom, God decided that the punishment for alienation from Him was death. Plain and simple.
God’s Mercy
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2: 4-5 RSV).
Well, not so fast. There is hope for us. God is rich in mercy (Eph. 2: 4).
Remember what mercy is. Mercy is where God doesn’t judge us to the extent He could have. Even though we deserve bad things as punishment, God doesn’t give them to us.
God doesn’t have just a little bit of mercy. He doesn’t dole it out just on the first Thursday of the month (ooops, missed that!). It is not contingent on Tom, Sally, and Elaine being perfect children.
Nope. The only contingency on God’s mercy is that we have to be His children.
It doesn’t say it works for one sin but not another (except for the one unpardonable sin). We don’t max out the number. There is no expiration date.
To read What Does Forgiveness of Our Sins Mean?, click the button below.
God’s mercy is infinite. It is immeasurable.
My Ladies and I talked about the term immeasurable yesterday. My materials said it could mean to “throw to the next level.”
Just think about that a second. We make a goal and attain it, so we have to make a new, higher goal. That is usually how we think of getting to the next level.
Now think about God’s mercy. There is always a next level. We think we used up His mercy the other times we’ve confessed this sin. We haven’t.
We think that, once we sin “bad” enough, God will withdraw His mercy. Or that the shoe is going drop when Jesus returns.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
God’s Love
Mercy comes out of love. God is love (I Jn. 4: 8). That is His character. He can’t be what He isn’t.
That means God loves the obedience but hates the sin. That had the mercy kicking in full throttle.
But remember what we said. God only shows mercy to the repentant and obedient. He is only merciful to the faithful.
Making the Connections
Did you notice that it mentioned mercy first and love second? Remember we said the mercy comes out of the love.
I am not sure I am going to say this right, but mercy has a closer connection to us in our sinful state than love does. The love accepts us as we are, but the mercy connects with why we need the forgiveness.
Remember in the last devotion, we said that we were alive but dead? It says it again here. Without God as our Sovereign God, without Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and without the Holy Spirit guiding our footsteps, we are dead in our sins.
Love and mercy set up the plan of salvation. God knew that “… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3: 23 ESV). He set up a way that we could “… repent of [our] sins and turn to God, so that [our] sins may be wiped away” (Ac. 3: 19 NLT).
But part of the problem is that “because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (Ecc. 8: 11 ESV). We don’t see punishment meted out, so we convince ourselves there is none.
We have to watch that we don’t start using the mercy as a license to sin. We have to repent and turn from our sinful ways.
How Do We Apply This?
There will be punishment. “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20: 15 ESV).
God provided the only way to rectify that. “But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful” (Rom. 5: 8 CEV). All we have to do is believe and repent.
We need to make sure that we have given our lives to God before Jesus returns to call God’s children home. Then we need to live according to His laws and commandments.
If you have not admitted that your relationship is not right with God,
have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior,
and have not confessed your sins,
please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
Father God. Your love is immeasurable. Your mercy is immeasurable. Because of that, You have devised a plan so that Your wrath can be appeased. You sent You Son to pay the price for our sins. We commit our lives to You. Help us to live according to Your laws and commandments. Amen.
What do you think?
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