We were by nature objects [children] of wrath. Ephesians 2:3 (NIV)
This verse is disturbing, but its meaning is clear—the default position of every human life is that we are under the wrath of God. To help us grasp the importance of this, here is a parable…
Imagine a beautiful church with stained-glass windows, hundreds of years old, located in the center of town.
Pastor John, a wise, kind, and godly man—the kind of man you can talk to, especially when you know you’re in trouble—has served at this church for over 30 years.
One day Ben comes in looking for Pastor John. He is troubled and he needs to talk. “How can I help you, Ben?”
Ben looks down and mumbles, “Pastor John, how can I be a more generous person? …I don’t have peace about what I’m doing with my money. Maybe I need to give more.”
Pastor John senses Ben isn’t getting to the point. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”
“I’ve been taking money from people’s pension funds.”
As Pastor John is about to speak, the office door flies open: “Pastor John, Pastor John, there’s a bomb in the basement! You have to get out!”
Ben says he wants to be a more generous person. But there’s a bigger problem—he has stolen two million dollars from his company’s pension fund, and he is facing jail time.
But the biggest problem is that there is a bomb in the building, and if they don’t get out, all of Pastor’s John’s wisdom and all of Ben’s fear about going to the police will be irrelevant.
You may want to become a better person. You may even feel that there is stuff in your life that needs to be sorted out. But towering over these two is a problem of altogether different proportions—we are children of wrath.
Are you so focused on becoming a better person, or on sorting some things out in your life that you’ve completely missed the biggest problem?
