1 Thessalonians 1

How does God feel about me?

When it come to understanding this, we need to know the danger. We need to see the warning sign. The sign is in this passage - the coming wrath.

This wrath is God's personal and controlled anger against evil. This means that God feels passionately about how you are treated and how you treat others. The reason being that there will be a day of judgement where God will hold everyone to account for their actions.

The warning is that we will be judged! There is a coming wrath for all evil in the world. This is proved to be true by Jesus' death and resurrection.

Where does that leave me?

It leaves us heading towards a place of justice. Justice for every time you have been treated poorly, but also every time you have treated others poorly. It can bring great fear.

But remember: Just as Jesus' death proves there is a wrath to come, so it can save us from the wrath. Every time we say "no" to God, Jesus comes and pays for that sin.

We are not what we should be, and God's anger should fall upon us. The wonderful thing about the cross is that all God's anger falls upon Jesus instead. So that's how God feels about you if you accept that sacrifice for yourself. He no longer feels angry at you and your actions.

It's not about what I do

You might think that the good things you have done (or the absence of bad things) are what makes God less angry at you. But it has nothing to do with what you do! It is entirely what Jesus did on that cross.

What a relief! You don't have to beat yourself up every time you make a mistake. You no longer have to fear God's anger in the moments when you reject Him.