Is God Mad at You?

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31 NIV

Have you ever wondered if God is mad at you? Maybe that’s why the washer keeps breaking or your bank account is always overdrawn. You take a step forward and it feels like you get pushed two steps back. You’re beginning to wonder if it’s God’s “punishment” for some unaccounted sin.

The Pharisees cornered Jesus one Sabbath, hoping to accuse him of sin. They set him up by bringing a man into the synagogue with a deformity. Would Jesus heal him? In their eyes, the act of healing would be “work” that violated the Sabbath law, giving them the legal right to condemn Jesus.

The man was desperate, his life disabled by the withered hand. “Jesus turned to his critics and asked, ‘Is it legal to do good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing harm? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?’”

The Pharisees gave no response. The Bible tells us that Jesus “looked around at them angrily, because he was deeply disturbed by their hard hearts…” (Mark 3:4–5 NLT).

Jesus reached out in compassion and healed the man that day. The calloused Pharisees went away from the miracle even more determined to kill Jesus.

It was not their sin that angered Jesus most that day. It was the hard heart behind the sin—the callousness that can’t see a need, embrace a miracle or rejoice in God’s goodness.

Are you hard-hearted? Have you allowed bitterness, anger or revenge to take root in your soul? The Pharisees were blinded by their hardness of heart. You don’t have to be.

If you’ve grown calloused, repent and be healed. Return to God. He is slow to anger and abounding in love! He is for you and not against you.

Pray:“God, I confess that I have become calloused. Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit in me. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Seek: Has your heart grown hard? What has caused that hardness? Repent and receive God’s healing for your heart. Then trust his goodness towards you!

Speak: God is for me and not against me.