If we really knew God and understood the fact that He is a wonderful and loving Father, there would be no trouble in believing Him and His Word.
Can you imagine your four- year old daughter saying to you “I confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that my dad will not drop me. I also confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that my dad is going to feed me?” For this daughter there is no striving to believe that her father is going to be good to her, she just rests and relaxes in her loving relationship with him.
She knows that her dad is going to take care of her because she knows him and his character.
Similarly, once we get to know God better through a personal relationship with Him, we will find it easy to have faith in Him to provide what we need. Since everything we receive from God comes through faith in Him, knowing Him intimately becomes very important.
Prior to Jesus’ coming, there was wrath from God against mankind for his sins. It wasn’t total wrath. Even in the Old Testament, we see God’s mercy and grace. Yet the Old Testament Law was a ministry of wrath (Rom. 4:15 with 2 Cor. 3:7 and 9), and people’s sins were held against them. But when Jesus came, God quit holding people’s sins against them. This is exactly what 2 Corinthians 5:19 and 21 says:
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; and has committed to us the word of reconciliation…For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
The word “reconciliation” is talking about making peace. God was no longer holding us accountable. Instead, He imputed our sins to Jesus, making Jesus accountable for our sins. Jesus became what we were so we could become what He was—the righteousness of God.
We have been reconciled to the Father through His Son Jesus Christ and so God is not made at you and me. We are now the righteousness of God. Thanks be to God. Jesus was like a lightning rod that drew all the judgment of God unto Himself. He not only bore our sins; He actually became sin (2 Cor. 5:21).
- God is mad about you not mad at you.
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Jesus said this in John 12:27-32:
“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spoke to him. Jesus answered and said, “This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
Many have thought this thirty-second verse means that if God is properly glorified in our preaching, then He will draw all people unto Himself. But that is not what this passage is saying.
If you look in the King James Version Bible, notice that the word “men” in verse 32 is italicized. That means it wasn’t in the original language. The translators put this word in italics to let you know this was their addition, but it wasn’t a part of the text. If you take this verse in context, I believe that the Lord was saying He would draw all JUDGMENT to Himself. Jesus, like a lightning rod, attracted all of God’s judgment for all of mankind’s sins for all time unto Himself.
All the murder, all the perversion, every vile and rotten sin imaginable, all sickness, and all disease ever known to mankind actually entered into His physical human body. Isaiah 52:14 talks about the crucifixion of Jesus and says that He was marred more than any man to the point that He was unrecognizable as a human being.
That could not just happen from physical beatings, especially since the Word says that not a single bone was broken in His body (Ps. 34:20 with John 19:36). I believe His body was completely disfigured from the cancers, tumors, diseases, deformities, and anything else human beings have ever suffered.
Jesus didn’t ask for the cup to be taken from Him just because of the physical pain He would suffer but because He did not want to become sin. He hated becoming what He came to redeem us from. And the worst part of all Jesus’ sufferings was total rejection from His Father.
God the Father forsook Jesus so that you and I would never be forsaken. All that you and I would have suffered, through billions of years in eternity, the grief, the pain and, worst of all, the complete separation from the presence of God, Jesus experienced. And He experienced all of this for us. When we say God is judging our sins as individuals or corporately as a nation, we are voiding what Jesus did. That would be “double jeopardy.”
Some of you may not like this, but it’s true. Sin isn’t a problem with God anymore. It’s the church that has made it a major deal. Neither past, present, nor future sins can separate you from God. The only people who will go to hell are those who have spurned and rejected the greatest sacrifice that has ever been made. In heaven, you won’t answer for your sin; Jesus already has. You will answer for your acceptance or rejection of Jesus.
Please note this is not to say we are giving people license to sin. Sin has consequences. So beware. No one needs license in order to sin anyway. All we are saying is that God dealt with sin permanently at the cross and is no longer angry with us.
Sadly, many today portray God as if He is still angry with us and desires to punish us for every sin committed. That is not true.
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10).
“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). If God were to punish you for your sins, His only option would be to kill you! If God did punish you for your sins, He would owe Jesus an apology because Jesus already paid for your sins on the cross. The law of double jeopardy states that the same crime cannot be tried twice. Today, the wrath of God will never fall on you as a believer because it has already fallen on His Son on the cross. He judged your sins in the body of His Son.
“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
God wants you to come to Him in total confidence, not because of what you have done but based on what Jesus did for you. It isn't a throne of judgment but one of mercy and grace. When you think God is angry or displeased with you, it will rob you of being confident of His love for you.
It is very important to note that God is a loving Father who loves you with an everlasting and unconditional love. Therefore, He is not mad at you but mad about you in terms of His love. This is why He had to send His One and Only Son to come and die for you and I. That is how much He loves you and I.
It is very unfortunate that some of us don’t know the true nature of God so we blame Him for many things that He is not responsible for such as death, sickness, natural disasters. Natural disasters are just that—natural disasters. We live in a corrupted world where bad things happen, but God isn’t the cause of them. Paul tells us about the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4) who is responsible for all the evil and mess we see.
- Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: [email protected] or Twitter @dougmamvura
