While I have not always walked with God I have always believed that His word is true.  As such, I knew that eventually His righteous judgment would sweep across the face of the earth.  In this I was always correct.  Yet where I misunderstood God was not in His actions, but in His heart.

I envisioned an angry God doling out vengeance and wrath from a heart filled with hatred.  I envisioned His complete and utter disgust with the human race and His impatience leading Him to bring about our destruction.  I judged the motives of His heart and made Him into someone that He is not.

While what I saw was a petty and spiteful God, what I missed was His mercy.  I believed God to be an enemy to this world, and because my heart was captured by this world and its system, that made Him an enemy to me.  Again, what I saw was only in part. God is an enemy to this world’s system.  However, His desire is to show mercy to its inhabitants.  This world’s system WILL BE crushed under foot.  The destruction brought about by its sheer evil will be destroyed at the hand of a vengeful God.

It is God’s mercy that motivates Him.  If He were to sit back and remain silent He would in fact be allowing this world’s system to eternally destroy its inhabitants.  God’s judgment, His wrath and His fury are a wake-up call.  It is better that we suffer a little here than suffer eternally in the lake of fire.  It is better that He wake us now while there is still hope than for us to awaken to a destiny that is everlasting hopelessness.  His kindness and His mercy are evident in His judgment.  Just like a friend who will not withhold the truth from us for the sake of preserving our perception of them, God is not afraid to allow us a rude awakening.

RECEIVE HIS MERCY

I speak this message not to cause fear but to bring understanding.  However, if after reading this message you are left with fear I want to help you in overcoming it.  See, God made a way for us to enter into His eternal mercies.  He made a way for us to leave behind our old identities which are deserving of wrath so that we may instead receive new identities in Christ.  Through Christ we are invited to call Him “Papa.”

This awesome God, who created this vast universe and all that is beyond it, thought of you personally.  He sent His one and only Son, Jesus, to do what no man could do… to live a sinless life.  He sent His only Son to be the sacrifice that none of us is qualified to be.  He poured out His wrath full strength onto His Son as He hung on the cross.  He held nothing back.

Through Jesus’ sacrifice you are invited into a new life and a new identity.  No amount of self-striving can bring you to this place.  No amount of willpower can accomplish the task.  It was bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus.  As He endured the anguish of scourging, as He suffered the heartbreak of rejection, as He bore the weight of the cross and the piercing of His hands and feet, He thought of you.  As He hung there naked and ashamed, as He struggled for each breath, as He cried out and breathed His last, He thought of you.

Jesus made the way to an eternal relationship with His Father.  Now you must decide if you will receive His gift.  Repent of your sins.  Turn away from them.  Repent of your love of this world’s system.  This world does not love you but the Father does love you.

Repent…  repent…  REPENT and let the saving grace of God do what you cannot. Let it wash you clean.

If you need someone to pray with you, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Mitch Salmon is a follower of Jesus Christ and proclaimer of the good news!