The Day of the Lord is Coming
Obadiah 1:15 The Day of the LORD is coming soon to all the nations. And the evil you did to others will happen to you. The same bad things will fall down on your own head.
There’s a great business bestseller called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” written by a man called Stephen Covey. And his habit number 2 is to begin with the end in mind.
The idea is that we should determine what we want to achieve in life – our desired endgame, if you will – and then start living our lives right now so that that’s how things will turn out.
Begin with the end in mind. Live your life today to achieve ultimately what you want to achieve. It’s as powerful an idea as it is simple. Good advice. But today, do you mind if we look at the ugly underbelly of that principle? And in doing so I don’t expect this to be popular, but it’s just as important – in fact, even more important.
Obadiah 1:15The Day of the LORD is coming soon to all the nations. And the evil you did to others will happen to you. The same bad things will fall down on your own head.
On the one hand, if we expect the world to be fair (often it isn’t, nevertheless we still expect it to be) there should be consequences for our actions. People should be held accountable. But on the other, many find the notion of God judging our actions at the end of the day deeply offensive. Well, I’m sorry about that but it doesn’t change anything. God is God and the Day of the Lord is coming … perhaps sooner than we imagine.
The evil things that we do today will come back to bite us. The bad things we do today will fall down on our heads in the terrible, eternal judgement of the Lord. So, what’s the answer?
Live your life here and now with the end in mind.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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Ethan Crawshaw
Hi Theresa, The bible has a lot to say to answer this excellent question. If someone sins against God and against their ...
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Hi Theresa,
The bible has a lot to say to answer this excellent question. If someone sins against God and against their neighbours the bible says they deserve punishment. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a) However that verse doesn’t stop there. In full says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). We are all offered a free gift of forgiveness through Jesus. All they need to do is be sincerely sorry to God and believe in Him and they will not be punished. Instead, Jesus takes their eternal punishment apon himself on the cross. He did this for all humanity so that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). The punishment for what they have done still happens. But it’s Jesus who pays for what they have done.
I hope this helpfully answers your question,
God bless you,
Ethan.
Theresa Ezeokoli
Dear Bernie, I’ve not read this scripture before and it really relieves me for all that has been going on. Now ...
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Dear Bernie,
I’ve not read this scripture before and it really relieves me for all that has been going on. Now my question is, if someone has hurt another in the past and is sincerely sorry for their actions and God forgives them, do they still pay for what they have done?
Thank you and God bless you, theresa ezeokoli