What Is That To You?

One amazing characteristic about Homo Sapiens is our tendency to look beyond ourselves and into the lives of others. We want to be sure that others get their "just due".When someone does something wrong we want them to pay to the uttermost. We never consider that the wrong we do may be just as bad, or worst, and that God didn’t hold it to our charge as He could have. God is not only "just" -He is the epitome of "justice". Yet, on His right Hand is an intercessor who constantly is going to bet for us. Jesus keeps reminding the Father that He paid the price, with His blood, for sins and transgressions and as a result we are gutless of the many wrongs that we commit. There are times however, when the sins of individuals and nations is so much a stench in His nostrils that action must are taken:

God is serious business.
He won’t be trifled with.
He avenges his foes.
He stands up against his enemies, fierce and raging.
But God doesn’t lose his temper.
He’s powerful, but it’s a patient power.
Still, no one gets by with anything.
Sooner or later, everyone pays.
Tornadoes and hurricanes
are the wake of his passage,
Storm clouds are the dust. Nahum 1:1-3 (The Message)

God can deal with anything, except unreported sin. When any one of us chooses to hold on to our sin, we can sure that sooner or later, we will experience the "dust off his feet". How much better to live a life that recognizes the power of God and yet doesn’t rail up against it, but yields.to it:

But there’s also this, it’s not too late—
God‘s personal Message!—
"Come back to me and really mean it!
Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!"

^13-14 Change your life, not just your clothes.
Come back to God, your God.
And here’s why: God is kind and merciful.
He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot,
This most patient God, extravagant in love,
always ready to cancel catastrophe.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now,
maybe he’ll turn around and show pity.
Maybe, when all’s said and done,
there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God! Joel 2:12-14 (The Message)

The best news is – although we don’t get to choose the fate  of others – we do get to choose for ourselves…

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how youfeel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

Galatians 5:16-18 (The Message)

Maria