Notice in the following passages that God is angry with us, and reconciles us to Himself with judgment and warfare.

And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. (Isaiah 12:1)

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:2)

Before God will pour out His full Divine fury on the world He first will bring His saints through exacting trials.

This is a truth God's people of today do not seem to understand. When we come to the Lord our sins are forgiven. It is true also that we reap what we sow.

God forgave David's sin immediately. But the first child born to Bathsheba died. At a later time Absalom rebelled against David just as David had rebelled against God. God forgave David but David still had to suffer the consequences of his actions.

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. (II Samuel 12:10-12)

It seems at first glance that if God forgives our sins we will not reap what we sow. However, we always reap what we sow! The missing element in today's Christian theology is the understanding that God judges and chastens our personality, not because He hasn't forgiven us but because He indeed has forgiven us. If we love our child we will chasten him. Sometimes our children make us angry but this does not mean we do not love them.

If our goal were to go to Heaven to live forever there would be no need for God to punish and correct us after forgiving us. But because our goal is to participate in the Kingdom of God on earth, in a social environment not too different from that with which we are familiar, it is necessary we be changed into the moral image of Christ.

The most important aspect of the Kingdom of God is relationships. It is in the realm of relationships that the world is corrupt and destructive. It is in relationships that man experiences his greatest joys and his greatest sorrows.

The Kingdom of God is in relationships, in our oneness with God and our oneness with each other. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Righteousness, peace, and joy are impossible until our relationships are godly. In order for our relationships to be perfectly godly there must be nothing in our personality not found in God.

To be continued.