Is God Angry?

At the end of the day I suspect that the real reason we hate the idea of God's anger so much is not that we think it might be petty or impure, but that we fear that it might be right, glorious and completely pure - and that I might be on the receiving end of it with perfect justice on God's part. What hope would there be for me then? Thankfully the story doesn't end there, and the writer is about to tell us exactly where help resides when God's holiness clashes with human sinfulness.
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REST! Heb 3&4

Rest is nothing trivial. It is far more than a pleasant day off. It is the promise of security, relief, beauty, joy, marriage, inheritance and abundant goodness in intimate fellowship with God. It is surpassingly attractive. It ought to elicit a great big sigh of contentment at the very thought.
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Disobedience Equals Unbelief; Heb 4:1-5

Every time I disobey God, what it reveals is that I don't believe as I should. There is something faulty in my believing. In the case of the people in the desert that continued to grow and grow until it resulted in full-blown rejection of God and utter disbelief and lack of trust in him. The challenge in Hebrews 4 is to fear that slippery slope. Every time I sin it should be leading me to throw myself on God, fearing that I might fall into obdurate unbelief
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Big Shock Chapter

Hebrews 3 is a Big Shock Chapter for its original recipients. It has been where everything in the book has been building to so far, and everything else in Hebrews flows out of it. Chapter 3 demands a complete reorientation of mind for its first audience: they trusted Moses, they considered themselves "in Moses", they thought that Moses was the high point of the nation's relationship with God and the revelation of God through Moses was the highest, clearest and most important words that would ever be communicated from God. Moses, Moses, Moses. Our writer's argument is: Jesus is greater that Old Testament prophets (of which Moses was the supreme one) Jesus is superior to angels (who mediated the Law to Moses) Therefore Jesus is greater than Moses (and, he will go on to say, greater than the Law of Moses) Put yourself in their shoes. They had been taught for 1400 years that following Moses and obeying the Law was the exclusive way to know and be accepted by God. No Moses, no relationship with God. This is a HUGE claim that Hebrews 3 is making.
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