How To Know If A Deity Is Mad At You

Many people—Christians included—view God equally an angry deity waiting to strike them down. It's time to reveal the truth about a loving Father who desires the best for you.

If God has the whole world in His easily and knows every pilus on my head, then why do I always feel so far from Him? Could information technology be that God is mad at me?"

I have heard that question over and over during my 20 years in ministry building. In the early on years, I simply would tell people, "God isn't mad at you—He loves yous!" But after ministering to hundreds of thousands of people and hearing the same affair again and again, I began to realize how widespread this thinking is. Millions of people from all backgrounds have bought into the idea that God is not only aroused only besides that He'south aroused with them. This belief is dissentious countless lives, and I believe God has given me a mandate to set the tape straight.

How Americans—and the Earth—View God

There is a passage in Isaiah that's almost impossible to believe. In information technology, the Lord declares: "'I'm promising now no more anger, no more than dressing y'all downwardly. For fifty-fifty if the mountains walk away and the hills autumn to pieces, my dearest won't walk abroad from you lot, my covenant commitment of peace won't fall autonomously.' The God who has compassion on you says so" (Is. 54:9-10, MSG).

No more anger. No more dressing you down. My honey won't walk abroad from you. I oftentimes wonder how, with promises such as these in Scripture, so many people tin can believe God is angry with them. Simply the fact is, the cultural noise is but overwhelming. It can be absolutely deafening. Information technology seems today that anybody is an skilful on the subject of God.

For instance, I live in Birmingham, Ala., where catastrophic tornadoes swept through the heart of the city on April 27, 2011. That day, roughly 200 twisters touched down across the Southeast. Five states reported damage. More than than 300 people lost their lives—234 in Alabama solitary—and hundreds of buildings were destroyed.

Every bit the news media covered the tornado outbreak, I heard more than one person declare, "God is judging our city for its past sins."

Natural disasters tend to bring introspection. This happened both after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005 and in March 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami devastated the shore and inland cities of Nihon. More than than 15,000 people were killed in Nihon, and the tsunami set off a nuclear crunch at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

After the disaster, Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, was quoted as maxim, "I remember [the disaster] is tembatsu." Tembatsu means "divine penalisation." Ishihara's remarks are like to those made past and so New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin following Hurricane Katrina. "Surely God is mad at America," Nagin said. "He sent us hurricane afterwards hurricane later on hurricane."

Both men, when faced with unspeakable disaster, saw the destruction as penalization for man sin.

A recent book titled America's Four Gods, written past Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, provides an in-depth study of how Americans view God. With the help of the Gallup system, they interviewed thousands of people—and the findings were remarkable. Roughly 5 percent of respondents identified themselves as atheists, but the professors surmised the remainder of America has 4 principal views of God:

ane. The Authoritative God. Some 31 per centum of Americans believe God is both engaged in the world and judgmental, pregnant He volition use any mode to become our attention and wake us upwards.

2. The Chivalrous God. Xx-four percent of respondents believe God is engaged in our daily life all the same non-judgmental.

3. The Disquisitional God. Some 16 percent of those surveyed said God is judgmental and disengaged from our lives.

iv. The Distant God. Twenty-iv percent believe God is not-judgmental but too disengaged from our lives.

I have to wonder how many people surveyed perceive God to be an awesome and holy Savior. I have to wonder how many take ever heard God calling their names. I wonder how many of them take felt the touch of His Spirit.

God reveals Himself through His Word and His Spirit. He doesn't reveal Himself simply to a special few. He is calling out to all of us, wanting us to awaken to Him.

And y'all know what? Our spirits weep out to know Him.

Setting the Record Straight

I practise believe in divine judgment, but I believe in the crawly love of God even more than. The very character of God is beloved, mercy and justice, even so what the civilisation hears nigh God is ofttimes the reverse.

At present that y'all empathise how America views God, information technology's easy for you lot to see why many believe natural and man-made disasters must be from heaven. You lot can see why so many find it easy to believe that natural disasters must be due to God'southward anger with the nations. God must exist simply stirring the ocean, blowing the current of air and stomping the earth in a rage. He must be judging our sins! He must exist mad at u.s..

In the Old Testament, God did approximate nations. He led the nation of Israel into captivity for more than than 400 years because of its rebellion and idolatry. We know Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sexual perversion and lawlessness (see Ezek. 16:49-50). God had planned to practise the same with the urban center of Nineveh, merely Jonah arrived in time to preach the word of the Lord. The people repented, and God spared the urban center (run across Jonah iii).

God does judge, just what we must sympathize is that His mercy and dear prevail in the tough times. God warned Israel in Jeremiah xviii:6-10, proverb, "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O firm of State of israel. If at whatsoever fourth dimension I announce that a nation or kingdom is to exist uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, and then I volition relent and non inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another fourth dimension I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be congenital up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the skillful I had intended to exercise for it" (NIV).

Did you lot take hold of the cardinal word in the last sentence? God plans good for the nations. God loves every nation and calls out to them to serve Him. He is their refuge. He always made a way of escape in the Old Testament, but because the world was under the constabulary, every bit a simply God He had to punish the nations when they were disobedient.

When disasters strike, God wants us to run to Him, non away from Him because nosotros call back He's mad at the states. No matter what country we find ourselves in, He is in that location with open arms of honey, mercy and pity. When disaster strikes, we need only to call upon Him.

An Upside-Downwardly View of God

It's and then easy to think God is mad at you when you spend your life looking in the mirror and never out the window. The truth is, in our Western culture, life is pretty skilful. Nosotros go to bed each night to the audio of some pundit ranting on a 24-hr news channel about the state of the matrimony or some sports commentator bloviating about an overpaid athlete.

In our culture, God is often someone we mutter prayers to when we're taking a exam in schoolhouse, riding on a aeroplane or feeling guilty most watching something nosotros knew wasn't good for u.s..

Think the statistics I shared on how Americans view God? Ninety-five percent of our nation sees God as administrative, benevolent, disquisitional or distant. In other words, the very concept of God carries with it a stigma of control, aloofness or plausible ineptness. Because of this view of God, we find information technology easy to believe He might be mad at us.

But I'm e'er amazed when I go overseas and see what God is doing in places with far fewer resources. In Tertiary Earth nations, where life is then hard or it is illegal to be a Christian, the church is growing rapidly, and the believers are passionate. How can this exist? Many would assume that people in countries rife with hardship, persecution, famine and disease would think God isn't good, merely the contrary is often truthful.

I could tell you countless stories of godly people who accept experienced tragedies. I recollect about the pastor I met in Singapore who lost his small son when the boy's schoolhouse collapsed during an earthquake in China. When this pastor ran to find his son, all he could see were his shoes sticking out from under the rubble. I've never forgotten how that human responded: He fell to his knees and began to worship the Lord. He knew God was good fifty-fifty though his heart was breaking in two.

Churches in China are growing despite the threat of intimidation, arrest and persecution. It but doesn't make sense. Why would they take risks to worship a God who would let them to exist martyred, imprisoned or tortured?

Maybe they know something we don't know. Could it be that God is more than than simply a Santa Claus–type figure, more than than a two-hour weekend commitment, more than the mascot for a voting bloc?

One pastor from Shanghai who lives his life on the border for Jesus said if the head of 1 house church building was arrested, "the congregation would merely divide up and might break into five, six or even 10 new business firm churches." The millions who serve God in nations where it'south unsafe to exist a Christian must realize something about God's character we demand to know.

All of these great leaders have continually praised God through their trials. In fact, they say God has never been closer to them than when they walked through their trials. These warriors manifestly empathize what Isaiah 45:3 means when it says, "I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in hole-and-corner places, and then that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of State of israel, who summons you by name."

God isn't mad at you. Nope! He is mad well-nigh yous! Yous are the apple of His eye. You want to know how I know this? Here are five ways God proves information technology is truthful.

1. God never stops loving you. No matter where you're from, where yous've been or the mistakes you've made, God loves you. There is nothing that can make it the mode of that. Romans viii:38-39 says, "For I am convinced that neither decease nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor whatsoever powers, neither tiptop nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, volition be able to divide u.s. from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Nothing means nothing. God is beloved, and His love for you has no limit.

2. God created you lot for a purpose. You are "the God-created" (Acts 17:24-29, MSG), and God made you with a destiny and purpose in mind. He didn't create yous to sit and do nothing. He chose y'all to walk in ability, freedom and victory.

God reveals His purpose through your gifts and talents. I challenge you to use your abilities to bring God glory.

3. God wants to give you an abundant life. The devil would honey to destroy you lot, but God wants y'all to accept an abundant life filled with His power and provision. John 10:ten says, "The thief comes simply to steal and impale and destroy; I take come up that they may have life, and accept information technology to the full" (NIV).

In that location isn't a single need y'all take that God doesn't want to fulfill. As my dear friend Dave Martin always says, "The rest of your life is the best of your life!" Believe that God will provide all that you need, and get prepare to alive at some other level.

4. God gave His Son as a sacrifice to cover all your sins. I love the fashion Romans 8:iii-4 in The Message version explains what Jesus did. It says, "God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son."

The guy in me loves the sound of that—it perfectly describes the bold and intense moment when Jesus stepped into our humanity and broke the law to rescue you lot and me. And He did that because He loved us.

5. God has prepared a place in heaven for you. This earth is not our habitation! God prepared something else for u.s.. He prepared a place where nosotros will be able to spend eternity with our loving and faithful Father. If y'all've ever doubted the being of heaven, simply read the entire book of Revelation.

The bottom line is this: God loves all of us, regardless of our history. And there is a huge difference between conviction and condemnation. God convicts, and that leads us to repentance, but the devil condemns, and that leads to a life of guilt.

God isn't mad at you. He wants to spend eternity with you. Would you lot want to live forever with someone you lot were mad at? God doesn't either.

The most valuable thing you will ever receive is God's grace. He gave information technology to united states of america so we can sympathise the power of being redeemed. He gave it to united states of america and so nosotros can spend the remainder of eternity—starting today—living with and enjoying Him.

Pat Schatzline co-founded Mercy Seat Ministries with his married woman, Karen, in 1997. Together, they accept ministered to more than 2 meg people effectually the globe and have seen tens of thousands transformed by God's power.

Source: https://charismamag.com/spriritled-living/purposeidentity/god-isn-t-mad-at-you/

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