"Psalm 36:5: "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.”
Messages about God's nature can be very confusing today. If you listen to some preachers, God has given up and encourages us in any old kind of lifestyle. If you listen to others they tell you that God is so mad at you that He literally wants to send you to hell. Of course, both of these are caricatures of the two natures of God portrayed in the Bible. He is a God of wrath. Anyone who reads the Bible knows that. You could talk to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah about whether or not God will show His wrath. Ask the spies that Moses sent out to spy out the “promised land.” Because they refused to go in and take the land, that whole generation (40 years) had to die out before the Jews could go into Canaan. Ask the people who were buying and selling in the temple and had turned it into a house of merchandise instead of a holy place. If you remember, Jesus went into that part of the temple and raised havoc with those people. Ask the self-righteous Pharisees, who certainly felt the wrath of Jesus when He literally called them a bunch of snakes. He even refers to Himself as a "jealous God." What He meant by that was not that He was insecure in His relationship with His people, but that He longs for them to live the kind of lives that He would have them live. I think this basically means that our behavior sometimes breaks God’s heart. The Bible teaches us in 1 John 4:8b that "God is love." I hope that you will notice with me that the Bible never says that “God is wrath,” nor does it ever say that “God is jealousy." Thank God that He is the God of mercy (and grace). If He wasn't we would all be in very deep trouble. The greatest example of His mercy, of course, is the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to share His mercy on the cross. Jesus is God's personal statement of His mercy - "mercy in the flesh." Without the mercy of God, we would have to live daily with His wrath. What I know about His wrath from the Bible, I prefer mercy. I do not have space in this post to share all of the references to God’s mercy in the Bible, but I will share two. In Psalm 23:6, in the great “Shepherd's Psalm" David declared that God’s “goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life.” Psalm 119:4 informs us that: “The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes.” The second aspect of His love is Fathfulness. Throughout the Bible, God proves himself faithful to us. John 1:9 states that "If we confess our sins, He (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." This means that if we sin and come to God in true repentance, He will practice mercy and be faithful to forgive us. Being faithful means that when we come to Him in true confession, the Lord will always forgive us. This is one of the greatest promises of the Bible. God is always faithful to His people. For example, we read in Psalm 37:8: “For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.” Paul gave us an example of God’s faithfulness in Romans 8:31: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Let us be grateful that in His great love, God did not leave us with only His wrath, but that He practices mercy and faithfulness in our lives. Thank Him! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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