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Each month the Glen Park Gospel Church produce a one page newsletter called the Green Leaf. It's available from the chapel each Sunday. Anything that may be of mild interest will be published here.

Fire and Brimstone

Why does God allow evil in the world? We obliquely answered this recently when discussing free will. God accepts our choice to remain independent because, for God, it is better that people choose friendship with God than to be controlled like robots or animals and so act justly. Unfortunately, humanity throughout history has demonstrated that we are incapable of maintaining goodness to each other.

And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." Mark 10:18

There is always something we want over another which leads to envy and strife and even violence. By accepting less than even our own standard, we fall well short of God's standard. Falling short is one definition of sin. The other definition is rebellion against God. Therefore, being free from God is to be bound by our sin and so it isn't free at all. Falling short seems like a lesser evil to rebellion, but the point is moot because both are sides of the same coin, we do both, even Christians.

"Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience [to God], which leads to righteousness?" Romans 6:16

There are consequences for choosing to be separate from God and the title above brings to mind many times when God has punished sin. In fact, those occasions were just abrupt punishment. We all are eventually punished for sin. So God does not allow evil, but deals with it. Evil is not a thing separate from us, it is us. And it hurts God to see these things happen. Yet God tends to be slow to deal out justice, being long-suffering, desiring to see us seek His help.
Is our condition hopeless? Yes it is, but wait... Dealing out justice is not the end of what God has done about sin. In Jesus, God has substituted a perfect man to take the punishment on our behalf for our sin.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

Jesus death was not for anything he had done, because he was without sin, blameless. His death was God's gift to us if we will believe in (submit to) Jesus. Payment in full.

Thought for the Month

"The decline and fall of a civilization is barely noticed by most of its citizens."

Captain James Cook

For a list of this month's readings, click on the above link for Quick Verse

The Three Year Bible readings will continue to cycle on this site as usual, click here.

For past features (since 1995) see our archive

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