Eisend De Stroac

There is one biblical concept that changed my relationship with sin forever. I’ve never been the same. The concept is that we, as Christians, are judged differently by God depending on our knowledge & understanding of the Word and God’s nature. The closer you get to God, the more He expects of you. When you accept this as reality, the wages of engaging in casual sin go WAY up. The past two years are honestly the first time in my life where I have felt the FEAR of God. I fear disappointing the Father - but also His WRATH. If I fully understand the gospel and God has revealed truth to me, and yet I continue to stay in habitual sin, then as Romans 1 says, I am “without excuse.” God is love. But God is also wrath. When I say “judged” in this sense, I’m not referring to salvation. I am still a sinner and need daily repentance. However, the Lord disciplines the children he loves - just as we discipline our kids. And wouldn’t your punishment for your 16 year old who got arrested for a DUI more harshly than your 3-year-old who broke a plate? Because the 16 year old knew better. I know better now. I’m grateful for this - but it also feels heavy sometimes. Here’s Roman’s 1: 18-27 that explains this well: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”