The Surprising Truth About God’s Wrath [Daily Devotional]

Introduction

I’m still in Romans chapter 2, and from verses 5 to 10, there’s just more about God’s wrath. And I don’t want to be the downer talking about God’s wrath all the time, but it is in Scripture a lot, especially here in Romans again. I think when we’re in 1 Thessalonians and some of the other Pauline epistles, he’s talking about God’s wrath there as well. But I don’t want to focus on that today, even though that does stand out to me. that we can dull that down a little bit.

No Favoritism

But in verse 11, which is encouraging, it says, for God does not show favoritism, in verse 11. Then he was referring to, it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re Jewish, you’re Gentile, it doesn’t matter what your race, your creed is, what color your hair is, it doesn’t matter what your income is, or none of that matters. He doesn’t show favoritism towards anybody. Either you’ve given your life to Him, and you’re obeying His commands, and you love Him, and you’re living your life for Him, or you’re not, and you’re living your life for yourself. You’re being selfish, and you are ignoring who God is, and you are rebelling against what He has for your life. And those are really the only two options, and there is no favoritism. Whatever camp you’re in, He’s going to treat you the same as everybody else in that camp. You’re going to either receive His wrath or you’re going to receive His grace and you’re going to receive His forgiveness. That’s it. So that’s encouraging. Nobody gets favoritism with God, but there’s something else that stood out in verse 13.

False Sense of Security

With Christianity and Christians in general, there’s a lot of us, at least a lot of us that claim that we are. There comes, depending on how long you’ve been, a Christian or how long you’ve been going to church, you’re going to have varying degrees of knowledge. I think that knowledge can give us a false sense of security because you can know a lot about something and not actually be doing it or have that relationship. Like I can know a lot about Jesus but not have a relationship with him. I’m sure there’s a lot of atheists out there who know a lot about the Bible, but just, you know, they have no faith in it and they’re not following God in their life. So it doesn’t really matter what your knowledge is.

Just Do It

So I have four kids and they’re at the age where it doesn’t take them very long to to absolutely destroy a room. We try to make them clean up their rooms regularly, so that otherwise it would just be, I mean, they can live in filth. Like, they don’t even care. Like, they’ll just be stepping over all their stuff, wading through all these toys and all this junk, and they’d be totally fine. Like, we have to tell them, hey, you need to clean your room today. And then, you know, they don’t want to do it, or they’re never excited about it, but end of the day, mom and dad win. Like, we just told you, you gotta clean your room. You can hem and haw about it, you can complain about it, but… you just go in there and tell us clean, you’re not coming out. So, that’s usually what we do, and we do it fairly regularly. So, if I told them, hey, you gotta go clean your room, I let them in there for, let’s say, 20 minutes, and I go check on them, and there they are. They’re all sitting there, nice and quiet, because I have three boys that share one room. Let’s say they’re all in there, really quiet, and they’re all discussing amongst themselves what I just told them. And the room still being nasty. Would that please me at all? Like, Dad, you told us to clean our room. So we’re here talking about cleaning our room. We’re talking about what you what you said. You know, we’re discussing what clean means. And We’re each having, you know, a viewpoint on what clean is and what clean means. And then the room in general, we’re really getting deep in this subject. And we’ve got some research here that we’ve researched what room is and what that means and then what that means in our life and how this is a big part of where we are and what it looks like when it’s clean. And I’m like, is that going to please me at all? Nope. You’re not coming out until it is clean. Do what I said. Just do it. Don’t talk about it and just have a good knowledge of, yeah, my dad really wants me to clean my room. Yeah, so just do it, right?

Knowledge vs Relationship

And so I think having a certain amount of knowledge can possibly be a false sense of security for Christianity. I mean, I went to school for Christian ministry, right? So I have a degree in it. That does not make me a better Christian or a better Christ follower at all. I mean, it can give me advantages if I’m living it out and I’m doing it because I know more about what I’m supposed to be doing. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to have a better relationship with God because of my knowledge. And I know that because I went to school with people who know as much as I know. And I’m like, man, those guys really should not be in ministry at all because they’re not living the life. You don’t have to know a lot to please God. You don’t have to know very much at all. What’s the two greatest commandments? To love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s really about the most amount of knowledge that you actually need. And I just gave it to you. So, you can study all you want, but if you’re not loving the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind, and you’re not loving your neighbor, which is basically anybody you run into, then you’re not pleasing God. You don’t need any more knowledge.

Conclusion

A lot going on in Romans chapter 2. I’m still in it. I’ll probably still be in it. But hopefully that is encouraging to you. So for what it’s worth, that’s Romans chapter 2 from my point of view. But I hope you’re getting in scripture today and letting Him change you.