We can see all through scripture that Jehovah God is a very emotional Being. You can get a mental grip on this by realizing that mankind is made in His image, and heaven knows we’re emotional creatures. Well, where do you think we got that from? Our Creator, of course.
Because of the unmistakable end time events we see occurring, as well as the degradation of morality in our society and the increase of man’s inhumanity towards man, I have to think God must be one big ball of mixed emotions right about now. Oh don’t get me wrong, I don’t think His heart is in turmoil because He’s having a difficult time keeping all the proverbial plates spinning.
No, He’s in perfect control of what’s happening around the world. There isn’t a governmental board meeting He doesn’t sit in on and He knows every back-room, underhanded deal and plan of the enemy. Nothing and I DO mean nothing escapes His attention. He still has the hounds of hell on a short leash, but will turn them loose shortly to carry out His will.
He’s also in control of every event in the natural world. After all, He created this planet and has clear plans for its destruction and renovation. He knows when and where every earthquake will occur, as well as how powerful it will be.
Every weather system, storm, mudslide, tornado, hurricane, tsunami, etc., is in His powerful hand. All this is no biggie for Him. But…there is one thing He cannot control.
Us. He created people with the freedom to decide whether to love Him or not. He didn’t create a race of automatons, programmed to do His bidding with no choice. No, He created mankind because He wanted to have a loving relationship with us.
He deeply longs for and even craves our love, devotion and respect. He desires to shower us with blessings and adventures for all eternity in His heavenly kingdom, designed especially for us and our pleasure! Can you believe that?? I don’t get it, but it’s true.
He loves us. I’ve tried for many years to wrap my little pea brain around that fact, and I still just don’t understand. I mean, WHY? Why would a Being of unimaginable power, intellect, magnitude, size and creativity love us?
When you get down to it, most people are hilariously arrogant, selfish, greedy, cruel, perverted, narcissistic pigs on a power trip. What’s to love? I don’t even like most people, and I’m one of them! Heck, I don’t like myself—well, my human nature anyway.
But the fact remains, He loves us despite the havoc sin has wreaked. We are His babies; His little sheep. And it doesn’t matter WHAT we’ve done in our lives, He still loves us! Dare I say it…? Yes, God even loves *gulp* the occupant of the White House and his money-grubbing wife.
He loves every member of our corrupt government. Obama, Pelosi, Holder, Boehner, Hillary, Reed, and on and on. He LOVES these people, *gag* just as much as He loves me.
Great scot, He even loves every murdering, lying, rapist, thieving, blaspheming, false-god-worshipping muslim! Psalm 139 wasn’t written just for Christians. It clearly describes the very intimate knowledge God has about every single one of us.
Verses 16-17 states He knew us BEFORE we were conceived! “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book, all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”
Now, you’ll just have to excuse me but I don’t get how the Lord could love some of these people. They are completely reprehensible in my eyes, and worthy of frying in hell for all eternity. And yet there God is, sitting on His throne, watching His lost little wandering sheep with love and concern. It’s easy for me to forget I was once a wandering little sheep.
Isaiah 53:6 reminds us “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Romans 5:8 goes on to explain a curious fact: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
What? How is that possible? The word ‘commendeth’ in the Greek is “sunistao.” It means ‘to show, prove, exhibit or establish.’ In other words, God didn’t decide that human beings had to clean up their act before Jesus would agree to leave heaven, and lower Himself to die for our sins. He knew we would never clean up our act on our own, because we’re incapable of doing so.
So, to clearly prove how desperately He loves us and wants to restore the perfect relationship He enjoyed in Eden with Adam and Eve, He agreed to be tortured to death by the very vile, sin-filled, dust critters He created, in order to satisfy His perfect justice.
Now, I’ve been head-over-heels before and done some pretty silly things to demonstrate my affection to my beloved, but to die for some schlub while he’s abusing and cursing me? Uh, no.
Anyone who would go to those lengths to prove their feelings could definitely be labeled a fool for love. Except God isn’t a fool, by any stretch. He knew perfectly well what He was doing. (And I meant that in the most reverential way, so just zip it.)
For the Lord to send His SON—His only begotten Son—His pride and joy, to die in our place is just…it’s…well, it’s outlandish! It’s astonishing. It’s stupefying. It’s amazing. The level of grace He showed–yeah, that’s it!
It’s Amazing Grace. And one of the most mind-blowing facts about this transaction is that even after going to all that trouble, God STILL doesn’t have any guarantee that we’ll accept His free gift of pardon. Can you believe that??
I want to address the backslider and those who have never given their life to Jesus. For me to tell you “God loves you” is such an inept, trite phrase I hesitate to use it. It simply doesn’t come close to describing how the Creator of all things feels about you!
Quite frankly, He’s nuts about you! Plum crazy for you. If heaven had a fridge, the drawing of your life would be posted up there, held with little magnets with your face on them.
No matter what you’ve done, He sits everyday on the edge of His throne in heaven, waiting for some little signal from you that you’re open to His invitation to cleanse you from sin and make you into a new person.
He pines for you, in the way a lover longs for the one they adore. He waits every second of your life for you to come home to Him, the way a parent of a run-away child waits; with a heart that’s bleeding and torn with concern.
Listen up! I want you to get this: It does not matter what you’ve ever done. Drugs, murder, stealing, lying, adultery, abortion, homosexuality, cheating, blaspheming, unbelief in His existence, alcohol, divorce, child molestation…it doesn’t matter. He STILL loves and wants you.
You don’t have to get cleaned up to come to Him. You don’t have to get off drugs first, or stop living with your boyfriend. He doesn’t expect you to become some model citizen before He’ll look at you. His arms are open, waiting to receive and hug you tight. He’ll take care of all the other stuff later.
Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Please read it carefully. In the story, a teenager got too big for his britches, “demanded” his inheritance early, then left home far away from daddy, to party and live like a heathen.
Of course, he ran out of money and the only job he could get was feeding pigs, which was beyond disgusting for a Jew seeing that pigs were considered ceremonially unclean. However, he was so hungry that he started eyeing the food in the pig trough. That’s desperation right there now, I don’t care who you are!
He decided to return home, beg for forgiveness and ask to be hired as a servant; at least he could count on having a clean place to stay and enough food. He could only hope his father wouldn’t throw him back into the street.
Then the story changes perspective to the dad’s viewpoint. All those months, he had no clue where his son was. He didn’t know if he was dead or alive or sick somewhere; he watched and waited every day for some sign that kid would come home. The father’s heart was broken over what his son had done, but he still loved him anyway.
One day, he looked out his window and saw his son walking towards home. The dad was so excited to see his boy, he tore out of the house and ran to meet him. Remember, this young man was filthy, smelly, hungry, shoeless, wearing torn rags and smelled like a pig sty, but Jesus said in verse 20, “his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
The only thing that mattered to daddy in that moment was his son was home. He grabbed his filthy child, and hugged and kissed him with great joy! The son was forgiven that very second and welcomed back into the household.
Not only that, his dad ordered a huge celebration be held in honor of the fact that his son, previously feared dead, was alive and back home! And THAT, my friend is how our heavenly Father views us.
This truth came alive for me after I had my own child. I know in the marrow of my bones, that nothing he could ever do or say would cause me to stop loving him. NOTHING. I might hate what he does, but I could never hate him.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t punish him or stand by the authorities if he broke the law. He’d still have to pay the penalty for his actions, but I would love and support him anyway. Lots of moms and dads visit their sons and daughters in prison every week. If I, being wicked, know how to love my son, how much more does our Father in heaven love us?
Back to the reason I think God’s tummy must be in knots right now. As much as He loves every single person alive, He is also a perfectly just and righteous God. He’s demonstrated enormous mercy and restraint in holding back His wrath towards the sin and wickedness on this earth. However, that is going to change very shortly. Even the Lord runs out of patience.
Here’s the conundrum: Because of His perfect nature, He must punish unrepentant sin. His plan for accomplishing this, thus establishing Jesus as King over all for His Millennial reign and renovating the earth, is spelled out in the Bible.
But that plan will unfortunately result in the deaths of millions—even billions of human beings. They’ll die without knowing Him and will subsequently end up in hell for eternity, forever separated from their heavenly Father.
This isn’t because God sends them there! No, they will have chosen to go to hell because they refused the free gift of salvation God’s Son, Jesus Christ, died to provide for them. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, our sins are washed away and we are as clean in God’s eyes as Jesus is.
No sin can enter God’s home. Therefore, everyone in heaven must be sinless and that can ONLY be accomplished by our receiving the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. He suffered our death sentence so we could live in His kingdom!
God’s big ‘ol heart breaks at the thought of ANY of His children dying without Him. He doesn’t get His jollies from smacking people down! In Ezekiel 33:11, God pleads with Israel “…As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” This sentiment applies to us Gentiles too.
We who are saved and watching expectantly for Jesus to snatch us home to heaven before God pours out His wrath tend to grumble, “Come ON God! Get the lead out, will ya? What are you waiting for?”
Our answer is in 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise (to come get us), as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Look, He did absolutely everything He could to give us the chance to be reconciled to Him and live as His pampered sons and daughters in His kingdom forever and ever. There isn’t anything else He can do; our price of admission has been paid by His Son and that price was Christ’s life blood.
God has put off punishing the inhabitants of this world just about as long as He can without usurping His own standard of justice. You don’t have much time left to give your heart and life to Jesus before He comes to execute the greatest rescue mission of all time, the rapture. We, who are ready, are going home soon. Believe me; you don’t want to be left here to face His righteous anger!
Yes, Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth and all that’s in it, showed mankind the ultimate price a ‘fool for love’ will pay to show His affection. So, if you refuse to accept His love and free gift of pardon…well, all I can say is this: You are some special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
author: bensmomi99@gmail.com