Patience for the wicked
This week's study is on Romans 9:22-24:
These verses came to me courtesy of a discussion I had with my friend John, who is an actual legit priest. I wanted to talk more about God's grace in my last study and he wanted me to say more about it. These verses express God's patience with us perfectly. They're even almost phrased as a response to last week's warning!
Last week I talked about how God is holy and craves order, and how his grace is a gift we should accept. This week I will talk about how good that gift is, and why we should really want to accept it. Just as God's wrath and judgment preserve the sanctity of his holy design, his grace demonstrates his raw power and love, and glorifies him even more than the judgment does. It's beautiful and compelling.
Our sin makes us the objects of God's wrath. We do things wrong. We interpret things wrongly. We cause trouble for each other. We cause trouble for ourselves. (Yes, God loves us, and hates our self-destructive ways because we're hurting someone he cares deeply for.) We're already a hopeless case when we first encounter him. His creation and his vast universe would be perfect if it weren't for us.
But God loves us so much. And there is such a glory payoff to be merciful with us. And he is eternal, so he has all time in his hands. And so for the span of our time on earth, there's hope because his grace is available to us. There's always time to run to him and be forgiven, to change our ways and let him have his order and his glory at the same time, to accept his love and be his. Even those of us who were not born as Jews, selectively bred to be his example people on earth, are eligible for this gift of his. God's love is abundant and available to everyone.
God's patience is a demonstration of his great power. In stuff I've read about war zones and bar fights, the guys you have to watch out for are the children with guns and the insecure powerless-feeling guys. They're the ones who will kill you as soon as look at you, or who will escalate a minor dispute into a bloodbath. Mass-murderers often match that profile, loveless powerless marginalized guys who need to prove they're something. God is the exact opposite of all of that. God is mature, patient, loving, and all-powerful. He doesn't need to be in a rush to put us down. He can take us down any time he wants to. He would just rather love us.
Because of who God is, it's much better for us to have him on our side. His gift of grace is available to us as long as we're on this earth. We don't know how long that will be, so it's better to accept it now than try to wait for our deathbed. Not everyone knows when their time has come. It's not like waiting until the hour before class to write a paper. You don't know when it's going to be due. It could be now.
But it's wholly to God's credit that he waits so long for us. He is so patient. I think when we die, and we have eternity to spend in his company, that we will see fully how patient he's been with us, and how wicked our lives must have looked to him. There's such glory in forgiving a debt like that. Because he's eternal, he planned all along to offer us that gift, to be that wonderful to us.
Allow yourself to be amazed at God's patience with us, and his love, and his power. Accept his gift of salvation and grace. There's nothing like it in the universe, and the offer is only available to us while we're here on earth.
What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
These verses came to me courtesy of a discussion I had with my friend John, who is an actual legit priest. I wanted to talk more about God's grace in my last study and he wanted me to say more about it. These verses express God's patience with us perfectly. They're even almost phrased as a response to last week's warning!
Last week I talked about how God is holy and craves order, and how his grace is a gift we should accept. This week I will talk about how good that gift is, and why we should really want to accept it. Just as God's wrath and judgment preserve the sanctity of his holy design, his grace demonstrates his raw power and love, and glorifies him even more than the judgment does. It's beautiful and compelling.
Our sin makes us the objects of God's wrath. We do things wrong. We interpret things wrongly. We cause trouble for each other. We cause trouble for ourselves. (Yes, God loves us, and hates our self-destructive ways because we're hurting someone he cares deeply for.) We're already a hopeless case when we first encounter him. His creation and his vast universe would be perfect if it weren't for us.
But God loves us so much. And there is such a glory payoff to be merciful with us. And he is eternal, so he has all time in his hands. And so for the span of our time on earth, there's hope because his grace is available to us. There's always time to run to him and be forgiven, to change our ways and let him have his order and his glory at the same time, to accept his love and be his. Even those of us who were not born as Jews, selectively bred to be his example people on earth, are eligible for this gift of his. God's love is abundant and available to everyone.
God's patience is a demonstration of his great power. In stuff I've read about war zones and bar fights, the guys you have to watch out for are the children with guns and the insecure powerless-feeling guys. They're the ones who will kill you as soon as look at you, or who will escalate a minor dispute into a bloodbath. Mass-murderers often match that profile, loveless powerless marginalized guys who need to prove they're something. God is the exact opposite of all of that. God is mature, patient, loving, and all-powerful. He doesn't need to be in a rush to put us down. He can take us down any time he wants to. He would just rather love us.
Because of who God is, it's much better for us to have him on our side. His gift of grace is available to us as long as we're on this earth. We don't know how long that will be, so it's better to accept it now than try to wait for our deathbed. Not everyone knows when their time has come. It's not like waiting until the hour before class to write a paper. You don't know when it's going to be due. It could be now.
But it's wholly to God's credit that he waits so long for us. He is so patient. I think when we die, and we have eternity to spend in his company, that we will see fully how patient he's been with us, and how wicked our lives must have looked to him. There's such glory in forgiving a debt like that. Because he's eternal, he planned all along to offer us that gift, to be that wonderful to us.
Allow yourself to be amazed at God's patience with us, and his love, and his power. Accept his gift of salvation and grace. There's nothing like it in the universe, and the offer is only available to us while we're here on earth.
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