God is love. He loves you more than anyone can, so he gets upset if someone hurts you or any of His children or denies His son, Jesus. Today, Paul talks about the wrath of God. The wrath of God is not God striking out to hurt us, it is God not rescuing us from the natural consequences of our decisions and mistakes. Phillips translation of the Bible calls it the Holy Anger of God. The next section of Romans discusses the wrath of God in more detail.
“The wrath (holy anger) of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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. 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. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Romans 1:18-23)
God loves you and created you to love Him. His love is perfect, so why would you choose to ignore Him? Hopefully, you don’t, but perhaps you weren’t brought up to know Him or don’t feel worthy to be loved by God. God feels we should know Him through His creation. Go to the beach and watch the sun rise or set. Look at the stars. Go to a park and experience the beauty. Think about the laws of physics and the way your body works. God’s creation was perfect until humans damaged it. If you recognize God through His creation, you are wise in His eyes. You are also wise if you feel worthy to be loved by God. As His child, God looks at you as being perfect; He created you and gave you the gift of righteousness if you believe in Jesus. He will also give you His gift of grace, His power to live the life He means for you to live, with joy.
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What is your plan for your life? Pray for a greater plan, God’s plan, and He will give it to you.
When you believe that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, you are righteous in God’s eyes; he forgives you and removes your sins from you. (See Micah 9:17 and Psalm 103:12. If you don’t have a Bible go to www.biblegateway.com). Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, murdered Christians before Jesus called him to be an Apostle. Yes, God forgives murder! Not only did God forgive Paul, he made Paul an Apostle and a writer of most of the New Testament. Paul spent many years being ashamed of killing Christians, and he was unable to function. But at the time he wrote Romans, Paul was no longer ashamed of his sin because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). It wasn’t until Paul was able to forgive himself and realize that God had a plan for his life, much greater than his own plan, that Paul became great and, thus, wise in God’s eyes. The good news is that when we believe in Jesus, His righteousness becomes ours. In Paul’s world and in our world, people ignore God and pretend to be God by thinking they have His wisdom to handle life’s difficulties on their own. We were created to depend on God to get us through life with joy. When we depend on ourselves, we may find other gods such as money or alcohol or anything that gives us momentary joy and fall into wickedness or we may fall into depression because we are not equipped to handle life’s difficulties without Him. He lets us fall into wickedness and depression (the wrath of God) so that we realize we need Him. He waits for us with open arms to return to Him. Go to God by praying! Thank God for your life and your blessings. Ask him to reveal His plan for your life.