Wrath

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. Romans 1:18 NIV

When we read the word “wrath” we think of its definition.  Wrath is a noun that means extreme, violent, or intense anger, often combined with a deep desire for punishment, revenge, or divine retribution.

Yet when you dig deeper into this verse you will see that the Greek word for wrath used here is the ὀργή (transliterated as orgē).

Orgē generally means, settled indignation, or a fixed and righteous opposition to evil. It is not a sudden uncontrolled outburst of temper or anger. It is a steady, holy, and objective revulsion and judgment against sin.

The Greek word for anger that bursts outward with emotion is thumos. It is used in verses like Luke 4:28 where it says the crowd in the synagogue is filled with wrath.  A sudden burst of emotional anger.

When Jesus cleared the temple with a whip He was not exhibiting either of these two Greek words.  The Bible tells us that Jesus had “Zeal” for His Father’s house. “zeal” (“Zeal for your house will consume me” in John 2:17). The Greek word used for Jesus’s actions was zēlos.

In Romans God has a deep indignation against all godlessness and wickedness.  All types and all forms. God is pointing out that the consequences of your repeated actions of ignoring His calling, love, and open arms, is that the natural path of sin will lead you to doing detestable things. God gives every opportunity for humans to see His love. He gave prophets, the bible, and nature.  All speak about God’s love.  Yet people still have scales on their eyes and their hearts are hardened. So, God gives them over to their own evil desires.

Just remember the children of Israel.  They had God before them in a pillar of light at night and a cloud for shade during the day.   Yet, even with these very visible forms of God they turned and went their own ways many times.

The wrath that is spoken about here in Romans is that God just lets sin take its normal course.  If it is not checked and removed from your life, it will lead to destruction and eternity in Hell.

How do you check and remove this habit from life?  Turn and surrender all to God.  Walk with God.

I love this example of what surrender to God really means.  Everyone has done this or seen their parents do this.  When someone is going to come over for dinner or a visit to your house you start to clean.  You pick up the living room, dining room, bathroom and kitchen area. Make the area look perfect and ready for company.  You then go around the rest of the house and close the doors to hide those areas from the eyes of the visitor. You do not want the visitor to see or enter those areas. You are trying to hide that area because you think the visitors will change their mind about you if they see how you really live.

This is how most people surrender to God.  They only give Him access to certain rooms or areas of their life.  Access to only parts of their thinking, behavior and their daily walk in life. They do not want to give up or let God change some of the aspects of them that they like or think they can hide from God.  They want God in their life on Sabbath but not during the week.

God already knows what is behind the door that you will not open. What you do when you believe no one is watching. What you forget is that God loves you even with what is behind that door. He knows what is hidden in secret, but He is not going to open the door.  He is waiting for you to open the door and voluntarily let Him in for a complete transformation of the heart.

He is knocking. He wants to come in.  When you do not open the door, He does not go away He just stands outside the door and lets what would be the normal consequences happen when you continue to live in the darkness and never let the light in.

God’s wrath cannot be a part of darkness.  He needs the door open for His light to burn away all the darkness.

Are you able to surrender all to Him?  Opening every behavior, personality trait, and habit to Him. Every thought and every action.

Remember it is not a religion it is a relationship.

Prayers and Love for all.

Larry