Goodness and Severity!

(Romans 11:22)  “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God:”

Here are two of God’s attributes in the quoted verse, goodness and severity, opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, you could say. One is almost tempted to separate it as the good and bad side, BUT God is righteous and everything about His being and character is Holy and righteous. Therefore He will only ever judge from that platform; He is God and thankfully is in control and yet He always operates under the banner of all that is holy and righteous. His ways are far above our ways, all this means is when we think we reason with a sound mind and pass judgement on something or someone, even though we are fully convinced with are correct in our rational, we may be miles off the truth. Why? Because of our fallen natures, sin has affected even our reasoning. Remember our very first example of “I did it my way” in the book of Genesis when Cain and Abel offer a sacrifice. They both did something similar; they both offer a sacrifice to God. Cain’s sacrifice was rejected and Abel’s accepted. Abel was a beneficiary to God’s goodness whilst Cain eventually experienced the severity of God. We must remember both sacrifices were to the same God! I know I have laid my heart on the table and still believe that once a person is truly saved that they will never be lost. We have enough in scripture to prove this point. However, when God addresses those who call out to him, He has been very deliberate to show us that He can and will be very strict and stern when required. It is important that we get to know our Heavenly Father and the only way we can achieve this is to spend time with Him. Quality time! We must understand what it is He will accept and what He will never accommodate. Let us consider what pleases Him. We can say with assurance that His Son the Lord Jesus, pleases Him. He is also please when we follow Christ instruction by the Word, the Bible! Let’s prove that! “He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." (Matthew 17:5)

And we know that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ has himself said; Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) 

So the only way we can experience the Father’s goodness is through His Son. This is why when we pray to God the Father we always pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. Not through Mary or any other saint, only through the One in which God the Father was well please, His Son! You could say Abel understood this in type as he offered his sacrifice to God, but Cain came in his own strength and in his own way, it was nevertheless the same God and not another and yet He was not on the receiving side of God’s goodness but rather after rejecting to repent when corrected by God he eventually became bitter and twisted and committed the first murder in history. He was then banished from the Garden of Eden and faced God’s severity. Only then did he appreciate the error of his way but then it was too late; “Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.” (Genesis 4:13) 

We reason like this; if I am a good person, I give to the poor; I may even tithe to the local church and because of this God will accept me. You will be mistaken! As we have just proved that from scripture. God is love and is full of goodness but we will never embrace that side to Him if we sing this song, “I did it my way”, all we will then receive is His severity and we will then echo the words of Cain, “my punishment is greater than I can bear.” But then it will be too late! It needn’t be this way! Because if we follow God’s instruction we will be privy to His goodness; as He now gives us the same instruction that He gave to Cain, he was offered an opportunity to repent; “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Genesis 4:7)

The only possible way for us to do well is to repent of our own sacrifice, whatever form that may take for each individual, but rather to fall to our knees and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and confess our sin before Him and ask for forgiveness. If we do this then we will find the goodness of God and escape His severity. Nothing else will ever cut it!

For all who have repented and called upon the Lord Jesus have the mind of Christ, if we have been born again; we then have His Spirit living within us. We have been instructed to put on the mind of Christ. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” (1Corinthians 2:16)  - But it is clear that putting on His mind (to think like Him) is a process. New parameters have been set, so we must never forget our first love, the Lord Jesus Christ. We must not get “lost in translation”; we must never become too big for our boots! If we become confused and are not sure what we should do, remember the basics, remember to call upon the name of the Lord and we will be saved. Not only from hell, but from our current dilemma!

Signing off

Tyrone