From Thy wrath, Jesus, deliver us.
We don’t like to think about Jesus’s wrath. It’s highly uncomfortable, and we would certainly prefer to picture Jesus as meek and mild, kind and loving. He is all of those, of course, but the fact is, Jesus hates sin. He doesn’t hate us, but He hates seeing us fall into sin, reject His will, and go down a path that will obviously harm us. This is what triggers His wrath.
Remember when Jesus’ cleansed the Temple? This is a prime example of how His wrath works. Something had gone drastically wrong in God’s house. The animal sellers and money changers filled the court with what must have been chaos. Imagine the noise and smell. And this situation made Jesus angry, righteously angry. So He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out. He turned over tables, spilled coins, and generally made His displeasure clearly known. He told people to stop making His Father’s house a marketplace.
Remember, too, that we are God’s temples. When we are in a state of grace, God dwells within us. So when we make our temples a noisy, filthy mess, Jesus is going to get angry, and He will make us feel the consequences of our choices. This isn’t only so that He can punish us; rather, it’s so we can change, get cleaned up, and become a “house of prayer” and a place of love for Him to dwell.
From the snares of the devil, Jesus, deliver us.
The devil tempts us all the time. He lays attractive snares, trying to catch us with things that seem good but are really harmful to us. We have to be on the lookout constantly so that we don’t get caught, but as always, we can’t do this on our own. We need God’s grace to strengthen us, enlighten us, and protect us so that we don’t fall for the devil’s tricks.
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