“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7)

From the very ‘get-go’, it had to have been an ominous sign...that time when God ‘clothed Himself in flesh and dwelt among us...’ (John 1:1,14)...and would soon discover how crowded people’s hearts and lives had become as they found it difficult to ‘make room’ for Him. It’s been over 2000 years now...and Jesus still... seems to come up on so many ‘No Vacancy’ signs plastered across our hearts (Luke 14:16-20).

There seems to be an ongoing tendency we humans display...where we are “always going astray...in our hearts” (Heb. 3:10). And God makes no effort to conceal the fact that this angers Him; so why do we fail to ‘get that message’? (Did you catch yesterday’s post, by chance?)

I realize how easy it is for God to be ‘painted’ with so many different brush strokes to where people have quite the varied range of understanding as to who He is and how they perceive His nature to be. On one end of the spectrum, God is often seen as some angry and frustrated deity who has nothing better to do with His time than to hurl down lightning bolts of misery upon the masses, who despite their repeated, feeble efforts...can do nothing to appease Him. And on the other end of that range, He is portrayed as some lonely, desperate figure with few friends and is constantly begging us to ‘come to Him’ , and if we’ll hang out with Him... He might give us all kinds of nice stuff. And He could careless how you dress or how you live...He’ll take what He can get; I mean...he settled for an old stable to make His entrance into this world, did He not?

I hope you realize that both of those portrayals are distorted and are a gross misrepresentation of the One who created...not only the heavens and the earth, but also created you ...and knew you before the foundation of the world was even laid (Eph. 1:4; Jer. 1:5).

But if there is any aspect to God’s nature and character that many misguided ‘believers’ today have not fully come to understand, it would have to do with the ‘anger of God’, and there are multiple reasons for this. That reference in Hebrews 3:10...where that one particular generation of people were being singled out as ‘their hearts always went astray’...is the same group of folks that Paul referenced in 1 Cor. 10; and I mention this because Paul points to them and says all that they did and experienced was ‘written down for us...upon whom the ‘end of the ages has come’ as examples and warnings’ (6,11). He then asks us...”Do you want to provoke the Lord to jealousy’? (22). So apparently...that is ‘still a thing’ that we can do – provoke God to jealousy...and anger. Care to guess how one does that?

Please turn to Ezekiel 6, and I’d like you to mark one verse in particular that I came across a couple of years ago that just went right through me. It reveals an aspect about God that we don’t see or hear about very often, or at least as much as maybe we should.

Today, when we hear someone publicly share a more sensitive side to what they are ‘feeling’...we applaud them for their ‘transparency’. I don’t know of another verse in the Bible that does so with God in such a fashion, where God openly states: “...I was ‘crushed’ (broken) by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot...” (9).

Now some folks might not be comfortable with hearing God expose such a candid side to Himself...but friends...would you take a moment to consider that we, His people...can do that to Him? We. Can. Crush. His. Heart. And He voices exactly how we ‘do that’, when our hearts ‘go astray’, which He describes as being an ‘adulterous’ heart. Interesting... How God uses an illustration that far too many people today can ‘relate’ to...this idea of being betrayed by the one you would have never thought would do this to you. Honestly, is there any greater emotional pain that can be inflicted upon a human heart...than the act of betrayal?

And how often do we toss up such a feeble and flimsy excuse when we do that to God...”Oh...I’m such a pitiful, wretched sinner with a flawed nature...and I just couldn’t help myself!”

Friends, Let me ask you this: Assuming you made that ‘trip down the altar’ at some point in time to marry the love of your life, would you have gone through that ceremony had they confessed to you up front...that you might as well get used to being betrayed because there was no way they could ever be ‘faithful’ to you given their ‘roaming eyes and sinful ways’? I hardly think so. And what counsel would you offer a close friend who confided in you that their ‘soulmate’ was a ‘habitual cheater’ and refused to ‘change their ways’; would you suggest that remaining in such a relationship was healthy for anyone? Again, I hardly think so.

And yet....

Would you care to know how we demonstrate today...what an ‘adulterous’ heart looks like? Paul gives us a pretty clear illustration in Romans 7. And he was using an example from the ‘law’ that stated that a married woman was ‘bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives’ (2). “But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband” (3). “So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an ‘adulteress’ but if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.” (Now if you have been divorced and remarried and your ‘ex’ is still living...please don’t panic; that’s not the point of this illustration).

Consider this: We oftentimes hear a spouse referred to, in a not so flattering way...as ‘my old lady’...or my...’old man’. So borrowing Paul’s illustration here...if your ‘old man’ is still alive, and yet you claim to be the ‘bride of Christ’...do you realize what Paul is saying here?

Are we not instructed to ‘put that old man to death’ in Romans 6:6 and Col. 3:5,9? And according to Galatians 5:24, who are the ones who ‘belong to Christ’? (Go look it up).

Years ago, I heard someone suggest in a ‘comical way’ that God seemed to be tougher on folks who married, divorced, and then married someone else...as if they could never find forgiveness for doing that...so they might consider ‘murdering’ their spouse, receive forgiveness for that sin and then they are free to marry whomever...according to the ‘law’. Well nobody is advocating that, and yet...we are instructed to ‘put that old man of ours to death’, and not just ‘on a leash, in a cage, or dialed down’.

I think at times we would do well to let others call us a ‘Christian’ instead of us telling the world we are...’married to Christ’. It can make for some awkward and confusing conversations when that 'old man' is clearly ...alive. (Acts 11:26)