Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath. (Rom. 2:5)
WHILE TEACHING WRITING at a Christian university, I had to give a student an “F” as his mid-term grade because he had not completed one single assignment. Apparently, he was used to getting “participation trophies” for just showing up, so he complained to his parents, who in turn called the president of the university. I learned from my division chair that the conversation went something like this:
“How dare this professor give our son an “F”! What are you going to do about it?”
The president patiently listened to the parents’ grievances and, knowing that the student had turned in no assignments during the first six weeks, responded, “Well, with your son turning in no work, I am so very sorry that an “F” is the lowest grade Prof. Watkins can possibly give him.”
The president also pointed out that professors don’t give grades, but that students earn them. Not to infer that teachers are gods, but the Lord doesn’t “give” punishments either.
- S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in hell, choose it.”
Indeed, people store up wrath against themselves by their stubborn and unrepentant actions and attitudes that demand, “My will be done.”
Review your last twenty-four hours and ask, “What do I merit for this?”
James N. Watkins loves God, his family, writing, speaking, and deep-dish pizza—in that order.
© 2018 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
