WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: What makes you angry? Is it ever right to be angry? Pray that God will speak to you today through this passage. God’s anger I’m not very good with anger. I hate it when people get angry with me. And when I say something in the heat of the moment I spend hours afterwards regretting it. It is pretty obvious from this passage that God’s anger doesn’t blow over as quickly as mine does (v 25). With very good reason! His law has been rejected, therefore his anger burns as tongues of fire (vs 24,25). The consequences are truly dreadful as he punishes Judah with destruction by the mighty armies of Assyria (vs 26–30). True repentance What does God’s anger mean to us? Do we really expect him to get angry with us, punish us? As a teenager I had two friends, brothers, who had very different journeys to faith. One saw God’s tremendous love, the other saw only his anger. Eventually, between them they saw the whole picture, which is what we too need to see. There are many things in our world today which can rightly make us angry. We have to do what we can to put things right, and then leave the rest to God. We need to help people to realise, as Judah had yet to learn, that only true repentance can turn away God’s anger. Respond: Pray that you will understand your own anger better and know when to use it and when to apologise to God. http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-12-19