Christians do well not to find fault with one another! There is certainly a need to be faithful to the Gospel and to be people of integrity, but the less quick to criticize within the “family”……the better. After you read the three scriptures I have listed, you may indeed believe that “[God’s] thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not [God’s] ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Actually the Isaiah text is a great invitation to come to God for a new blessing! But, the apostles Luke and Paul sound as though the wrath of God has come and will come again!
But then again….read Luke and Paul closely: Such GOOD promises from God in Christ after the Tower has fallen and killed, after the snakes have bitten, and after the temptations and sins have done their worst!
What is our need today that these passages speak to any of us?
By their end, I do find a word of love and compassion from a God who knows we “miss the mark” way too often! A word of salvation in spite of sin and tragedy.
It’s like the old Paul Harvey line: “And now….for the rest of the story!” Whatever the first part of an incredible story he would relate, he had even more amazing things to reveal in the second “half.”
That’s why we never give up on anyone…not even ourselves, you and me. God’s not “finished with us yet.”
Thanks be to God! It may be a rough Friday (or whole horrible week!), but remember…Sunday’s coming!”
Keep the faith!
Pastor Barry