God Is Not Mad at You: You Can Experience Real Love, Acceptance & Guilt-free Living (2 page)

To be sure, there are many examples in the Bible of our heavenly Father getting angry, but that does not mean that He is an angry God. He does at times get angry at sin, disobedience and rebellion. But He is slow to anger, abundant in mercy and always ready to forgive. All of our sins—past, present and future—have already been forgiven. This took place when Jesus died on the cross. All we need to do is believe it and receive it any time we fail. Ask and receive that your joy may be full (John 16:24).
Don’t make the mistake of spending your life believing that God is mad at you, when the forgiveness you need is available at all times. Speak freely with God about your sins. He already knows all about them, but bringing them out into the open and letting nothing remain hidden between you and God is very liberating. It is awesome to realize that we can talk freely to God about absolutely anything and that He understands and does not judge us. That doesn’t mean that He approves of sinful behavior, but He does understand the weakness in our flesh (Hebrews 4:15–16), and His power enables us to overcome it.

There are many instances recorded in the Bible of God’s anger blazing against the Israelites because of their complaining, disobedience, and worship of idols and false gods. But the amazing thing to me is how quick God was to completely forgive them and restore all of His benefits to them as soon as they turned away from their wickedness and back to Him.

This happened over and over again throughout the Old Testament. It is truly astonishing how often Israel served God and enjoyed His abundant blessings and then turned away in rebellion and disobedience to worship idols and to please their own selves. It is even more astonishing how quickly and freely God took them back, forgave them and restored them to their former prosperity when they turned back to Him with sincere and repentant hearts. It is very evident from the history of these people, who were God’s chosen ones, that He is faithful and always ready to forgive and restore.

Perhaps you think that God is angry with you. Surely, if God was quick to forgive people who turned entirely away from Him and worshipped idols, He is more than ready to forgive you and me for our sins.

We are reminded in these Scripture verses that God understands our weaknesses. He knows that we will at times succumb to temptations and wrong behavior, but He is also a compassionate, loving Father who stands ready to forgive everything. The very fact that we cannot do everything right is why God sent Jesus to pay the price for our redemption.

The story of the prophet Hosea is an extraordinary picture of God’s amazing love and deep commitment to the children of Israel. God commanded Hosea to marry a harlot named Gomer and to have children with her. This was intended to be a living example to the Israelites of God’s faithfulness in the face of their unfaithfulness.

Hosea and Gomer had three children who were named by God. Their names were prophetic. In other words, they were intended to be a message for the children of Israel. The first was named Jezreel, which signified God’s judgment on the ruling king Jeroboam. The second was named Lo-Ruhamah, meaning “not pitied,” which conveyed the message that God was about to withdraw His mercy from Israel. The third child was named Lo-Ammi
and it meant “Not-my-people.” The names of these children were a prophetic reminder to Israel that God was displeased with their unfaithfulness.

Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea, and her infidelity was a symbol of Israel’s unfaithfulness to her covenant relationship with God. Instead of responding to God’s goodness with love and gratitude, the Israelites used the crops God had blessed them with as offerings to idols. They were unfaithful to God just as Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea.

Even though Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea, God commanded him to take her back again and love her.

This was intended to show God’s commitment and everlasting love for His people. Although God was angry at the Israelites for their amazingly stupid behavior, He never stopped loving them. He intended to deal with them in a way that would eventually draw them back to Him. So we see that even in our sin, God devises ways to draw us back into a loving relationship with Him. God is not ever going to give up on us!

All God required in order to restore the Israelites’ relationship with Him was for them to return to Him and repent of their iniquity. He wanted them to be sorry for what they had done, turn away from their sin and turn back to Him.

If you have served God at some time and walked away from Him to have an affair with the world, surely this story gives you hope that God is waiting with open arms to receive you back. Yes, God does get angry, but His nature is to forgive and restore.

When we get angry with people, it is usually because they did something to us that we don’t like, or they didn’t do something we believe they should have. Our anger is always due to someone hurting us. When God gets angry, it is not because of what we are doing to Him. It is because of what we are doing to ourselves by not following His ways. You might even say that His anger is for us, not against us. God’s love is everlasting, and even His anger and displeasure are intended to drive us away from sin and back to Him.

Although we often resist God’s commandments because we think they are hard to follow or will prevent us from doing what we want to do, we are wrong. Everything that God commands us to do—or not to do—is for our good. Our obedience to Him will give us the life we truly desire. The Bible is a record of how blessed people are when they follow God, and how miserable and wretched they are when they don’t. God said it very simply in His Word:

We don’t need to chase blessings, because they will chase us if we will simply do what God asks us to do. Most people are so busy chasing blessings and trying to obtain what they think they want out of life that they fail to obey God. Their actions are counterproductive and will never produce the result they desire. If we will put God first in our lives, He will add all the things we need and desire (Matthew 6:33).

In the Scriptures above we see the law of sowing and reaping in operation. Follow God and reap good things; rebel against God and reap a harvest of bad things. The extraordinary, good news, though, is that if you have sown bad seed (disobedience), you need not be afraid, because all you need to do is begin sowing good seed (obedience) and you will see God’s goodness in your life.

I know a young man who is eighteen years old, who was raised in a good Christian home, but has chosen to go his own way and do every wrong thing that he can possibly do. It almost seems that he is bent on self-destruction but is oblivious to what he is doing.
His parents are not angry with him; they are sad for him. They are angry at the evil that has persuaded him to go in the wrong direction, but they are praying and waiting for his return to God and to them. With a few sincere words of repentance from him, they will receive him back without reproach or condemnation. If a parent can do that, how much more can our perfect God do it!

You don’t have to live in fear that God is mad at you! Look away from your sinful behavior and look to God instead.

I think Scripture proves that our unbelief is a much larger problem than our sins. Sin can always be forgiven for those who will repent and believe, but when unbelief exists, God’s hands are tied when it comes to helping us.

The Word of God teaches that it will be done to us according to how we believe. In other words, when I believe that God is angry with me because of my imperfections, no matter how much He loves me and wants to forgive and restore me, I will not receive it because I don’t believe it.

Our unbelief is a tragedy when it comes to God’s good plan for our lives. He longs for us to believe Him, to come to Him with simple childlike faith and trust what He says to us in His Word.

God called Moses to bring deliverance to His people. It was actually something that Moses had longed for, yet when God finally said the time had come for Moses to act, he refused to believe that he could do what God was asking him to do. Moses made one excuse after another until finally the Bible records that God’s anger “blazed against Moses” (Exodus 4:14).

Simply put, God got angry because Moses would not believe! He eventually did obey God, and of course God was faithful.

We learn from the apostle Paul in the book of Hebrews that the Israelites were never allowed to enter God’s rest as they traveled through the wilderness due to their hardness of heart and refusal to believe His promises. Unbelief makes us miserable and steals every blessing that God desires for us. It also makes God angry. He so much wants us to be blessed in every way that when we do things that prevent His blessings, it makes Him angry. It is a holy anger, not a selfish anger as we experience in our humanity. It is important for us to remember that God’s anger is directed toward our sinful behavior rather than toward us. I may hate something one of my children does, but I always love my child.

If you feel guilty right now and are afraid that God is mad at you, then you are miserable. But your misery can be immediately changed to peace and joy by simply believing God’s Word. Believe that God loves you and that He is ready to show you mercy and forgive you completely. Believe that God has a good plan for your life. Believe that God is not mad at you!

Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest preachers the world has ever known, delivered a sermon entitled
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
. It is considered by many to be the most famous sermon ever preached. The response from those who heard the message was nothing short of amazing. They often cried out during Edwards’s preaching, asking how they might be spared, and flocked to the altar for salvation. It was a frightening message about God’s anger at sin and the dangers of being sent to Hell.

I don’t mean what I am about to say as a criticism of Edwards’ message, because it is evident that God used it in a mighty way. But I do wonder why people respond to God’s anger more quickly
than they do to His love and mercy. To be honest, it makes me sad. I would much rather my children respond to my love than to a threat of punishment if they don’t obey me, and I am sure you are the same way with your children. I can’t help but believe that God is the same way with His children. Surely, He doesn’t want to have to frighten us into obedience through threats of our ending up in Hell. It may work in the lives of some people, and I suppose it is better than nothing, but I cannot believe it is God’s preferred method of dealing with us.

I also wonder if people who are frightened into repentance by the thought of eternal punishment continue with God, or if some perhaps go back to their old ways. I doubt that a good relationship can be built on fear.

Love is stronger than fear, and if we respond to God’s love, it will cast out all of our fears. We can respond obediently to God because we know He loves us rather than because we are afraid of punishment.

I wasted many years living with a vague fear that God was angry with me, and it wasn’t until I received His love by faith that I was released from that burden. I believed that God loved me in some sort of general, impersonal way, but I did not know the fierce, fiery, all-consuming love that God has for His children.
Fortunately, over the years I have come to know that amazing, passionate love, and it has truly delivered me. I now know that God is not angry with me; He isn’t even annoyed with me! And it isn’t because of my wonderful self; it is simply because He’s in love with me. I’m no longer afraid to face Him just as I am.

God wants to do the same thing for you, and you need not fear His anger even another moment. God loves you perfectly and unconditionally
right now
! Believe it, receive it and let it deliver you from all fear.

I think it is insulting to God when we believe He is angry and wrathful, just waiting to punish each of our misdeeds. If we spend our time believing that God is angry with us, we are focusing on what we have done wrong, instead of what God has done right in sending His Son to pay for our sins. For sure, we all sin, and God doesn’t like it, but I believe that He is easier to get along with than we might think He is. He is good, kind, merciful and slow to anger, forgiving, faithful and just. He is to be loved, worshipped, praised, thanked, and adored. And yes, God is to be feared, but it is a reverential awe and respect that He wants us to have for Him, not a sick, debilitating, tormenting fear that destroys intimacy and relationship with Him. He wants us to fear Him, but not to be afraid of Him; there is a huge difference between the two.