Another piece of good news about the wrath of God, at least as seen by the prophets, the wrath of God is aroused by human evil and oppression and can also be averted (avoided) by repentance. “Now, therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you.” Jeremiah 26:13 “Come let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up.” Hosea 6:1. God’s wrath always has a reason and God’s love is never far behind. God’s wrath is fierce. God’s wrath is just, but God’s wrath can also be ducked by a decision to change our ways.

Every Sunday we confess our sin. I’m not a person who goes around feeling guilty a lot. I don’t cuss very much. I don’t commit adultery. I don’t kill. I don’t cheat. I’m generally kind and gentle and responsible. But here’s what I do. My love for God grows cold; my affection for Jesus Christ goes dry; my attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit grows dull. I don’t reject God; I forget him. I don’t snub God; I ignore him. Like a stupid sheep I just nibble my way into other pastures. I just wander away. And what does Jesus do? Jesus leaves the 99 other sheep and comes after me. Then he carries me home and puts on a party for me. That’s grace. And he doesn’t just do it for me; he does it for you too.

There was something my grandfather tried to teach me - there's a place for every thing and for every thing there is a place. It seems like that's the way God created the heavens and the earth. He has a place for each animal and each one of these [from Psalm 104] verses 34 of the 35 in Psalm 104 is God providing for individual needs. Then you come to verse 35. "But, may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more." Everything was so positive, then all of a sudden 'Lord get rid of those sinners.'

Do you believe in the love of Christ? I’ll bet you do. Have you experienced the love of Christ? I’ll bet you have. My question this morning is this. Have you grasped the love of Christ in its height and in its depth, in its length and in its width. To grasp means to seize, to hold on tight, to take to yourself, to bring close and not let go. It’s one thing to believe in the love of Christ. It is another thing to grasp it, to make it your own. I hope that my thoughts this morning will help you (and me) to grasp the height of Christ’s love. I pray you will be strengthened in your faith, rooted and grounded in love, deep in your hearts.

Genesis 1:26: On the sixth day of creation God said, “Let us make humanity in our own image…So God created humanity in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Every human being is made in the image of God. Therefore, every human being is to be treated with respect and honor. No one is to be treated as if they have no honor, no respect or no value. The writer of Psalm 8 looks at the heavens on a starlit night and is overwhelmed by the greatness of it all and says, “what is the human being that you are mindful of us, yet you have made us a little less than God and have crowned us glory and honor.” Every human being has been crowned with glory.

What do we do? We decide where God can get involved and where God has to stay out. Our secular age has infected us. Our secular age wants to corral God in the church, or in the family, or in private matters. God does not belong in the schools, in the courthouse, in the halls of congress, in the White House, on the football field, or in corporate board rooms. We do feel uneasy about a God who intervenes in the affairs of nations. And yet, that is the picture we get in Daniel, a sovereign God, a God who enforces the law with discipline.