Romans 11

This chapter is full of really good stuff. All about God's mercy and our standing with God through grace. In verse 22 though, I am struck with conviction. It tells us to behold, or consider, both God's kindness and His severity. I know there are people who go around feeling constantly fearful of God and view Him as an abusive Father so to those people of course focus on the kindness part. But to be honest, most of the Christians I know are far from fearful. We are much more like spoiled children who flaunt their parents' good graces in public and do naughty things they are certain they can get away with and then try to flirt their way into not getting punished. Most of us really never consider His severity.

In that song I linked a few days ago, What Do I Know of Holy by Addison Road, it has a line that says, "I think I made you too small. I didn't fear you at all." We've made God too small. We compartmentalize His unfathomable powers and reduce Him to our genie in a bottle. So, when all we've got is this little pocket Jesus who we pull out and unfold when we need Him, we also then tend not to fear Him at all.

A friend of mine was laughing the other day about her husband who had decided to do some amateur electric work on his own bathroom. Without turning off the power. He decided he could get things started before the electricians got there and just be careful. Before long, the power in their whole bathroom had gone out, and not just a flipped breaker. It didn't come back on. He forgot what he was dealing with. He took too lightly the power of the electricity. Sure it's a wonderful convenience for heat and light and other great things, but don't kid yourself, its force can set your house on fire and stop your heart. You can't have one without the other.

And we can't have a God that is just kind without also being severely inconceivably fearsome. What good would that be anyway? I heard Steven Furtick talk about the little prayer we were taught as kids that started with, "God is great, God is good." His point was that if both weren't true, then He wasn't much of a God worth serving. So today, (After you read Romans 11 that is. You're supposed to read it yourself you know if you want to follow along with me. God will likely say something very different to you about it anyway.) let's meditate a bit on God's severity, His sternness, the magnitude of His awesome power. I, for one, could use the refresher.