God is not angry with you

What makes you mad?
When someone you love mistreats you? Lies to you? Talks behind your back? When you’re misunderstood by someone who you thought knew you better? Or what about that job or the promotion that you thought was in the bag, but passes you right by? When we have needs that are not being filled by our spouse, our friends, our children, or our checkbook, our response
can naturally turn into anger as we let our pain become a weapon–defensive or offensive.
We think we deserve better.
What about the sin that goes on around us? We get angry when we hear of children suffering abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care. We watch as violent terrorism and religious persecution cause innocent people to lose their lives and their liberties. We don’t understand why natural catastrophes devastate the ones who are the most disadvantaged and the least deserving. The world is so full of injustice that it is easy to be frustrated and difficult to believe that life can be so unfair.
So many people who suffer deserve better.
What about God? What makes Him angry? We read in the Bible how many times the sins of His people roused His anger against them. We see Him bring (massive) retribution against those who stood opposed to Him, denying His sovereignty in their hearts and lives. Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple for turning God’s holy house into a den of thieves. Ever since Adam and Eve first sinned, the beautiful world that God created for His pleasure and for His people to dwell in has been corrupted by person after person who chose their own way instead of God’s perfect way. God never did anything but love us, and still we perpetrated our sins upon Him until He finally had to put His own Son to death to satisfy the punishment we required.
He deserved better.
He still does.
It’s not as if the moment we accepted Jesus in our hearts we stopped sinning. On the contrary, those of us filled with the Spirit, empowered by His strength and assured of His presence, still find ourselves entrenched in the battle against sin. Or worse, we choose to sin, knowing that His mercy will carry us to heaven and get us in the front gate, even if we may have to unroll a sleeping bag on the Great Lawn because we lived such carnal lives. The perfect liberty that Christ bought us came at such a great price–His very blood–that surely He must be pretty angry that we keep falling into the sin that so easily ensnares us. Right?
Wrong. All glory to God and hallelujah, wrong.
Even though God loved us, because of our sin, we were His enemies. But when He put Christ to death on the cross, and the debt of our sin was satisfied, His anger was satisfied as well. Romans 5:8-11 puts it this way:
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."
If you flip back a page and read Isaiah 53, we are told that it pleased God to punish Christ for our sins. Not because Christ had done any wrong, but because God is a righteous, holy God. According to Psalm 99:4, "The King’s strength also loves justice; You have established equity; You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob." The punishment for our sins had to be given, but once it was, it was done for good. As it says in Hebrews 10:10, Christ died once for all. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we are immediately adopted by *His grace into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, where His *mercy triumphs over judgement. That mercy, which in Hebrew means "steadfast love," now gives us freedom from condemnation, freedom from shame, and freedom from worry about His anger. Once we understand the true meaning of Christ’s sacrifice in Isaiah 53, we can embrace the promise of His peace in Isaiah 54.
"‘For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, Who has mercy on you." (Isaiah 54:9-10)
This does not mean, however, that there are not consequences to our sins. God still disciplines us, as it says in Hebrews 12:10, "...for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness." We are grafted onto His vine, and He wants us to bear fruits of righteousness. We can expect to be pruned and cared for so that our fruit will remain. This is the loving act of the Father, not the harsh cutting of one who would destroy us. David recognized this, and in confession of his sin, cried out,
"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit."(Psalms 51:7-12.)
The next time you’re tempted to think that God is angry with you, take a moment to boldly come before His Presence and look upon His face. There you will find fullness of joy–His and yours.