The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. (Rom. 1:18)
Expanded Passage: Romans 1:18–20
When God scans your life, the results show that you are infected with a fatal disease: sin. It is destroying your body, warping your mind, and corrupting your spirit. This ailment will kill you. You cannot save yourself.
Some people imagine God to be angry and volatile, as if he were sitting in heaven boiling up a large pot of lava to dump on the heads of sinners. They live in fear of an angry heavenly Father and feel little hope of escaping his fury. However, it might be better to imagine God’s wrath as radiation treatment. Radiation is administered with great power and precision to kill the disease and save the patient. God is our skillful doctor. If we refuse his diagnosis and try to fix ourselves, sin will grow and eat away at us. If we place ourselves in his healing hands, he will blast our sinful nature and re-create us into a new person, whole and healthy.
The apostle Paul called himself the worst of sinners, yet God forgave him. No matter how horrible the decisions of your past were, God will forgive you. Paul also said that God made him into a new kind of human being, a new creation. Regardless of how deep sin has embedded itself into the fabric of your life, you can be made new.
Ask God to both forgive your sin and remove it.
Jarod Osborne is lead pastor of Pathway [Wesleyan] Church, in Warsaw, Indiana. He is the author of Jaded Faith (WPH).
© 2023 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
