The gory of God

   I read Zephaniah this morning, another book of prophecy, and I am just utterly amazed at the fact that God is revealing wisdom through these pretty depressing scriptures. I am just in awe of Him! Let me give you a couple examples of what I've been reading...

Zephaniah 3:8
"Therefore wait for me," declares the Lord, "for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them— all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger."

Zephaniah 1:17
"I will bring such distress on all people that they will grope about like those who are blind, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like dung."

   How gory, right? Entrails and dung and blood? This sounds more like something from Tales From the Crypt to me. Here's something I realized though. So many people talk about only the verses that emphasize God's love for us or grace, or mercy... basically the verses that make us feel good. And the verses that don't promote that lovey-dovey feeling inside are just ignored.
   These verse highlights God's jealousy and anger against idol worship. We should never forget that God is to be feared. He put gory things in the bible. He gets angry. He gets jealous when we worship something other than Him. God is our King. Kings are respected and feared and loved and served. Days go by where I forget how Sovereign my God is. I treat him too much like my buddy to the point where it's disrespectful, and I forget that he formed the mountains and could crush them with his finger. He is not tame.
   I also forget that despite the fact that God is all powerful and sovereign, and He gets jealous and angry, He forgives me. God knows me better than I know myself, so that means He knows my evil motives behind everything I do. He knows how "desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9)  I am and loves me anyway. On my best day, I still deserve hell. On my worst day, God still loves me. He saved me from hell. He saved me from my former way of life. He saved me from myself.
   I am sinful. I fail everyday. Anything bad in me comes from who I am. Anything good in me comes from Christ. So my prayer today is to be filled with Christ. I want to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that Christ comes pouring out and there is no room for my sinful self. I pray that when people look at me, they see Christ.
   Today I will live by grace. I will respect God like the rightful King He is. I will live remembering that every second of this day is filled with God's love for me. At my worst point today, God still loves me. I will live in gratefulness of the complexity of God. In whatever I do, it will be for God's gory... I mean glory...