God is not Angry at Us

God thinks peace 

towards us

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" Jeremiah 29:11

Attention is on these words today. God is not angry at us. This verse talks about the thoughts that the Lord has towards us. He thinks peace towards us. He wants to do us good. At the time that this word was shared by Jeremiah, the Israelites had been taken into captivity. This had happened because they had sinned and had failed to obey God and live by His statutes.

Quite an irony that they were in captivity, had disobeyed God, yet He said that He had good thoughts towards them. At a time when the remission of sins had not yet been made and so they had not yet experienced the grace of Christ. Still the Lord declared that He had good thoughts towards them. He wanted to do them good. How much more for us who live in the era of the grace of Christ.

When we have been living in sin and disobedience towards God's word, we may be shy about approaching God. Our conscience condemns us and we think that God is angry. From such a point of view, we may be born again but constantly experiencing condemnation, because we are not living under grace. Sure, He hates sin and does not want us to live in sin. Still He loves all of us, born or not born again; and wants to transform us and our lives.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (underscore mine) John 3:16. God has unconditional love for each individual (the world) and not just the "well-performing" ones. Salvation and life in abundance has been available for everyone who will believe in Christ. He wants to take care of us and show us love and for us to love Him back. His thoughts are not of evil and He wants to do us good; but we need to let Him do that by believing in His Son Jesus Christ and receive the price that He paid for us.

Don't be shy to approach God because you think He is angry. Don't think that He is punishing you either for something you did, He chastens/disciplines Hebrews 12:4, but the price for our sins has already been paid by Jesus. Anyone that calls unto the name of Jesus will be saved.

We are not looking at how perfect we are, but at the perfection of Jesus. Neither are we waiting to be "good enough" or until we have changed this or that to approach Him or receive gift of Jesus; in that case then we would never get to that place, because we cannot do it without Him. We need the help of God through Jesus.