"Reflections on God's Attributes: God's Mercy and Judgment"

“We should banish from our minds forever the common but erroneous notion that justice and judgment characterize the God of Israel, while mercy and grace belong to the Lord of the church. Whether in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane, God is merciful as well as just. He has always dealt in mercy with mankind and will always deal in justice when His mercy is despised” (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy p.91). God was not a mean God in the Old Testament and suddenly became a merciful God in the New Testament. It can be a difficult thing for finite beings to understand a God who is both fully merciful and fully just at the same time. God cannot suspend one attribute in order to exercise another. Every time He pours out His judgment, it is in the fullest context of mercy. Every time He exercises mercy, He is fully just in doing so. It would seem, at first glance, to make a statement like this would be labeled an oxymoron. This thought can be settled by considering what God told His prophet in Isaiah 55:8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.” Finite minds cannot always understand who God is and how He does what He does. However, just because His children do not understand, it does mean they can just dismiss the thought. It is still truth that God can be fully merciful at the same time as He is just. His children must examine this idea and take a closer look into what is the great mystery of the knowledge of God. By His Spirit and through long meditation, some understanding can be received and light can be shed upon this topic. This paper shall try to define and examine these two attributes, mercy and justice, by looking at them in the Scriptures and see how they meet at the cross of Jesus Christ and once again in the book of Revelation.

“Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.” (Job 34:12). Two things are discovered about God from this simple passage. First, we see that God CANNOT do wickedly. Right away we see that God’s judgments must be good. To punish wickedness is right, therefore it is good; to leave man uncontrolled in their wickedness is unrighteous, and therefore it is not in God to do so. Strong’s defines justice as: abstractly (rightness), subjectively (rectitude), objectively (justice), morally (virtue) or figuratively (prosperity). It is God’s confronting of moral iniquity. The Old Testament asserts God’s justice in very clear language and as beautifully as may be found anywhere in literature. Many, in the past and present, look at God’s justice in a negative connotation. The justice of God is actually a part of the goodness of His nature. Even in His judgments He is giving to man what he desires: “If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me” (Deuteronomy 32:41). Also, there is nothing negative about what was prophesied about the long-awaited Messiah, that when He came He should judge the people with righteousness and the poor with justice. He will show no partiality to the rich, and He will not overlook the poor. Isaiah 11:3&4 says: “and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.” This passage gives hope to all believers, especially to those who are oppressed, and should strike fear in the hearts of the wicked. When God’s justice is looked at through the truth, it is as comforting as any of His promises.

Secondly, we see from the verse in Job, that God cannot pervert His justice. He must punish those who reject His mercies and choose wickedness, no matter how much He desires to show them His mercy and love. He must judge, and He must judge in righteousness. He is a holy God, therefore He demands His children to be holy. Were there not judgments in the world, men would forget God, be indifferent of His government of the world, and neglect the exercises of natural and Christian duties. The wickedness of man is very often seen when God shows patience toward the wicked. It gives an excellent, yet narrow, picture of what would happen if God did not ever release judgment upon the wicked. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Psalm 50: 1&2 also says: “These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face. Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue.” The greatness of the crime and the righteousness of the Judge are the first natural thoughts that arise in the minds of men at the appearance of Divine judgments in the world. This is one of the main purposes of God’s judgments. God executes judgment upon all the unrighteous in order to convince all that are ungodly among them to repent of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed. Part of His mercy is that He never sends His judgments without a warning. Judgments upon notorious offenders have been evident in all ages; the Scriptures give many instances. Is He less good, because He judges and will not distribute His goodness to those that despise Him?

Psalm 23:6 says: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever,” and Deuteronomy 7:9 says: “Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” It is such a simple and humble request that the Creator of the universe makes of His children, to love Him and to obey Him. The splendid thing about these verses is that God’s children will not have to ever worry about His judgments if they will only love Him and keep His commands. He longs to show mercy to His children. If we could remember that divine mercy is not a temporary mood but an attribute of God’s eternal being, we would no longer fear that it will someday cease to be. Strong’s translates the word mercy as kindness, loving-kindness, compassionate, to be inclined to, to show kindness to, to be gracious. Both the Old and New Testaments proclaim the mercy of God, but the former has more than four times as much to say about it as the latter. This is a striking fact for a God who is considered to be mostly angry in the Old Testament. “As judgment is God’s justice confronting moral inequity, so mercy is the goodness of God confronting human suffering and guilt. Forever His mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming vastness of divine pity and compassion. He has a right to punish upon the first commission of a crime, but He warns men of what they have deserved and of what His justice moves Him to inflict, that by showing them His mercy He might not have to exercise the right of His justice” (Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God p.482). There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of His mercy. God is fully just in His mercies, because the purpose of showing mercy to the unrighteous is to make them forsake wickedness, turn to God, and “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt. 22:37). Mercy shown to the righteous makes them want to fulfill this command in an even greater way that is worthy of their compassionate Father.

Besides the Cross the supreme example of God’s mercy is seen in the life of David. God’s mercy is seen throughout David’s life, but it is particularly striking in one particular passage. There is not enough space to quote the whole text of 1 Chronicles 21:9-14, so a couple of verses shall be highlighted. God sends the prophet Gad to David with three choices of punishment for sin. These options were: “Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel” (v.12). David’s response is shocking! He says: “let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man” (v.13). Oh the blessedness of being confident in who God is and the assuredness of His great mercies!

“Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer” (Isaiah 53:19a). As seen in this verse, mercy and justice run head on into each other at the cross. However unpleasant this verse may sound to the ear of the natural man, it has been sweet to the ear of the sinner who repents and chooses to put his faith in the Lamb that was slain. Justice shall not complain for lack of punishment because of Jesus, nor mercy for lack of compassion because of Jesus. At the cross, the plea of justice was satisfied in punishing, and the plea of mercy is received in the pardoning of sin. The Father will “have an infinite sacrifice to content justice; and the virtue and fruit of that sacrifice shall delight mercy” (Charnock, p. 412). We must believe that God’s mercy is boundless, free and, through Jesus Christ our Lord, available to us now in our present situation. God has given His only begotten Son to assure us of this promise. No man ever was nor surely ever will be just in questioning the justice and mercy of God. “Not all the judgments, that have, or shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner’s conscience, or the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son” (Charnock, p. 135). The just penalty for sin was paid when Christ our Substitute died for us on the Cross. Thus God is righteous without being cruel and merciful without being unjust. Had man been sacrificed to justice, mercy would have forever been unknown; had man been solely shown mercy, justice would have forever been excluded. In Christ all the wrong things have been made right, though mercy and justice in God have never been wrong.

When the long-withheld judgment of God begins to fall upon the world, John sees the victorious saints standing upon a sea of glass mingled with fire. In their hands they hold harps of God; the song they sing is the song of Moses and the Lamb, and the theme of their song is divine justice. “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou alone art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest” (Revelation 15:4). Revelation 19:6 says: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” These two verses in Revelation are shouted by a people that have understood God’s plan in the end-times. They understand that the works of judgment poured out upon the world are from God Himself and are a result of the prayers of the saints. They know that these judgments are the least amount of judgment from a righteous and merciful God whose supreme purpose for these events is to cause the maximum amount of people to be taken to the highest level of love for their God and to cause the least amount of death of the wicked. The cry in Revelation 22:17 made by the Spirit and the Bride in for the Lord to come is to be understood not as a plea for personal vengeance but as a longing to see moral purity prevail in human society, restoration to come to the planet, and the Lord Jesus Himself to come to dwell amongst His brethren. Those who do not understand this about God’s judgments are spoken of by Jeremiah in chapter 5 verse 4, “Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.”

God is never at odds with Himself. No attribute of God conflicts with another. The truth is that there is not and can never be anything outside of the nature of God which can move Him in the least degree. Therefore He is always righteous, always just, and always merciful: “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face” (Psalm 89:14). It is through His great wisdom that such a plan could be devised that would show both the fullness of justice and the fullness of mercy at the same time. It is through the work of Christ at the cross that justice is not violated but satisfied, and mercy is shown at its fullest when God spares a sinner. It is highly better and more glorious for both justice and mercy to be satisfied simultaneously than if the claim of one had been granted, with the exclusion of the demand of the other. There would have been either an unrighteous mercy, or a merciless justice; it is now a righteous mercy, and a merciful justice. “And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him” (Isa 30:18).

Reflections on the Attributes of God: God’s Holiness

This is another paper I wrote for one of my classes at the Forerunner School of Ministry. The class was called "The Existence and Attributes of God."

“All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him” (Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy p.2). This quote sums up the biggest question facing believers today: Who is this God that we serve, and how must we go about serving Him? To begin to answer these questions, we must start with the attribute that creates the most awe, fear, and trembling in saints. It is the holiness of God. We serve a God that is Holy, and this holy God commands His children to “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15). We must start here. What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. We must get the right idea about God and about ourselves through the lens of God’s holiness. God valued His holiness so much that He allowed His Son to die on a disgraceful cross, and it pleased Him to empty His wrath upon His Son rather than sin should live. “Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely, than at the time our Savior’s countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans” (Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God p.135). It is as if God’s affection for His own holiness surpassed His affection for His Son, and Christ seems to value it above His own person as well by being willing to suffer death on a cross in order to bring justification between God and man. It is vital that a few brief points of God’s holiness be examined: A brief definition of God’s holiness, what has happened to those in the Word that have encountered it, and what we must do about it.

“And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). This is the reaction to God by the creatures that forever dwell in His presence. Why do they not say “good, good, good” or “faithful, faithful, faithful?” Holiness is defined by Webster’s as “pure; sinless; deserving deep respect, awe.” Holy describes all of God’s attributes in one little word (because He is holy, His attributes are holy), and the threefold repetition of the word notes the certainty and absoluteness of it. It is not a description of God, but it is what God IS. He is holy, and only He is holy. Any other time this word is used, it is only a description of an object that possesses a slight resemblance to God. Holiness is His crown. It speaks of the glorious perfection belonging to the very nature of God. He is a pure and unmixed light, free from all blemish. “He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is” (Tozer, p.105). The holiness of God is a perfect freedom from all evil. Just a glance upon the holiness of God, and we will say like our forefathers once said: “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11) and “Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God?” (1 Samuel 6:20). One may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine. God’s holiness is the very essence of the word transcendent.

“And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—overwhelmed” (Ezekiel 3:15). It is fun to look at the reactions of various men of God in the Bible when encountered by God’s holiness. For Ezekiel the word overwhelmed meant deaf and dumb. Ezekiel could not talk. He could not do anything after encountering the holiness of God. It was too much for him; the word overwhelmed is definitely appropriate! It is the same with Isaiah and Daniel: “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5) and in Daniel 10:7&8 “And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.” Both of these men of God (and the men with Daniel) did not know what to do with themselves. The funniest reaction of all is by the “beloved.” John, who of all the disciples, is the one seen laying his head upon the bosom of Christ (John 13:23). “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead” (Revelation 1:17). Even the beloved, when face to face with the glory and holiness of the Lord, falls to the ground as if dead. Three plus years of handling the Word of life (1 John 1:1) was not enough. Even without personal encounters, after seeing these reactions, one must say like Paul: “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). The very reason for studying and looking into God’s holiness is for His creations to be “conformed into the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). Matthew 5:48 stares at believers. No matter how one tries to explain it away or ignore it, there it is. It is a command by the Lord Jesus Himself. The verse has been ignored by too many for long enough. Many have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon those who strive for it as abnormal. God makes it known just how He feels about this deviation from holiness: “These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalm 50:21 & 22). So what is to be done by an unhloly people with this Holy God? Surely something must be done. It has been said “we become what we behold.” We have to do what David desired 3,000 years ago: “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). We MUST behold and become captivated by the beauty of Jesus and the beauty of His holiness. David said in Psalm 29:2: “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” In beholding His holiness, we become holy. It is our only hope for holiness. We must be holy because our God is holy. It is NOT an option! It is a command from Jesus and not a suggestion. Therefore: “seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (2Peter 3:11). God is looking for (and so believers must be) voluntary lovers that are holy and blameless in His sight (Ephesians 1:4).

We must take refuge in God from God (Tozer, p.107). Though one loves God as much as he can (which is a key principle of holiness), he cannot love God (and be holy) the way the Holy One deserves. We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock. By faith and obedience, by constantly meditating on the holiness of God and His Word, by loving righteousness and hating sin, and by growing in communion with the Spirit of holiness, we will grow day by day in holiness and will prepare ourselves for an eternal companionship with a holy God. “Above all we must believe that God sees us perfect in His Son while He disciplines and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness” (Tozer, p. 107). God is so holy, that He cannot help but love holiness in others. God’s heart is ravished when His children desire to be like their Father on this side of eternity.

Paper Entitled: "God's Goodness"

This is another paper I wrote for one of my classes at the Forerunner School of Ministry. The class was called "The Existence and Attributes of God."

“The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly” (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy p.82). Meditating upon the goodness of God will soften the hardest of hearts. The promises of goodness that God has made to His children in His Word are so extravagant, that they almost seem outrageous when thought about. This is especially true, when we consider the children to which He has made them. The children of God have been rebellious toward God and His infinite goodness almost since the beginning. Yet in Psalm 31:19, David says: “Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!” God has not only chosen to show His goodness toward men, but He actually stores up His goodness and awaits to shower it upon those who would simply turn to Him and fear His name. It is imperative for our hearts to take long and careful thought of the goodness of God. The next few paragraphs will attempt to define “goodness” and address a few areas of life where the goodness of God is most apparent.

In Matthew 19:17b Jesus says: “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” Jesus tells this man that the title of “good” is a title only due and properly belonging to Almighty God. As with “God is love” (1John 4:8), so God IS good. It simply is what He is. In the Old Testament, when God is defining and describing Himself to the Israelites, He says: “And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth’” (Exodus 34:6). “Not only is God good, but He is goodness itself, the supreme inconceivable goodness” (Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God p.211). He is the highest of goodness, because He does not act for His own profit. He is good for His creations’ welfare and because He wants to manifest His goodness to them. It is why David says in Psalm 33:5 “He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” The earth is full of God’s goodness because He longs to pour out His goodness upon His creations. His children will “abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness” (Psalm 145:7). They know they have received something of good that they in no way deserve and are incapable of repaying. However, God loves doing good so much, that He gives all and receives nothing. Even the evidence of His Spirit dwelling in a person results in goodness: “for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth” (Ephesians 5:9). The goodness of God is the attribute that can best sum up and define all His attributes into one.

In Matthew 7:11 Jesus refers to God as a good Father who desires to give good gift unto His children. It says: “how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” He is the happy and proud father that just had his first son. He is a father that cannot wait to hold and bless and get to know his new born son, even though this son has done nothing to deserve anything. The son at this point has only cried and screamed and cost money, yet his father already swells with love for him and longs to give to him good gifts. Our Father in Heaven feels the same way about us, and all He asks us to do for these gifts is to come to Him and ask Him and receive of Him. The goodness of God is the motive behind all the daily blessings He gives to us. Simply by His nature, He is inclined to disperse goodness, and He takes pleasure in the happiness of His people. If we will only come to Him, we will say like David: “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him (Psalm 34:8).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). This verse is the very essence of God’s goodness. Not only has God promised those who fear His name eternal life, but He gave His only begotten Son to provide it. The promise of eternal life to man is a higher reward than can be imagined. Eternal life is a gift, not by obligation but out of an abundance of God’s goodness. It could not be due to man either because of the nature of man or because of any natural right claimed because of his obedience to the law. “The whole gospel is nothing but one entire mirror of Divine goodness” (Charnock, 258). He gave us His son, because He cannot give a greater gift than Himself. No other sacrifice could have justified man to God. “Divine justice laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, but Divine goodness intended it for our rescue. Divine goodness sent Him, and Divine goodness moved justice to bruise Him” (Charnock, 265). God has given the whole of God to us. The Creator gave Himself to us in His Son Jesus. Everything that is great and excellent in the Godhead, the Father gave to us by giving us His Son. This is the good gift God has given to His children. This was more than man could have ever even imagined or dreamed.

Psalm 119:68 “Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.” Even God’s law and judgments are good. His laws promise blessings to those who fear Him and judgment to those who ignore His existence. His laws are not designed to discourage wickedness as much as they are promises of reward designed to encourage the pursuit of goodness. The subject of threatened evil frightens man, and the anticipation of the promised good allures him to obedience. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness” (Romans 11:22). The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. God’s judgments are promises of justice to the afflicted and warnings to the on-looking wicked. Still, at the end of the day, it is the “goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance” (Romans 2:4). His goodness towards us makes us desire “to be perfect (good) as He is perfect (good)” (Matthew 5:48).

In a world full of wickedness and sin and darkness and the opposite of good, we must focus our eyes on Jesus and the eternal bliss awaiting those who believe in Him. We cannot focus on this world, but we must believe and meditate upon the goodness of God. “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). David says it perfectly because he was a man that lived a life of doing this very thing. Zechariah 9:17a says: “For how great is his goodness, and how great is His beauty!” Zechariah was given just a glimpse into the age to come and was overcome with awe and joy at the goodness of God. We can get wrapped up and lost in the goodness of our God knowing He will forever be good to those who love Him. “He can no more act contrary to this goodness in any of His actions, than He can un-God Himself” (Charnock, 224). The goodness of God may better be admired and meditated upon than sufficiently spoken or thought of.

Exerpt From a Paper I Have Written on God's Faithfulness

One way to admire the faithfulness of God in Scripture and stir your heart is to study the history of Israel. I love to study the way God has dealt with Israel over the past 4,000 years. God will deal with His children today the same way His Word says He dealt with the children of Israel. Here we see how our belief in His faithfulness depends upon our belief in His word. Time and time again, Israel turns their back on the Lord. They seem to always want to be like the rest of the world. They choose to sin and choose to worship the idols of their neighboring nations instead of worshiping the true and living God. However, the Lord is always faithful to His name, to His glory, to His covenants, and to His people. Deuteronomy 7:9 says: “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” What a comforting verse. You see God hold to this word throughout Israel’s history. When the children of Israel chose to obey the commands of God, the Israelites always saw God’s provision and protection in their midst. When the nation of Israel did not keep the commandments of God, the Lord was still faithful. Sometimes He would send a prophet on the scene to declare the Word of the Lord over the wickedness of their hearts. Other times He would raise up a nation to bring judgment upon them, so they would turn from their sin and walk in His ways once again. Both ways reveal God’s heart and faithfulness toward Israel.

My two favorite places in the Bible to study God’s faithfulness to Israel are in Hosea and Revelation. Hosea is told to marry Gomer, a harlot. The Lord will not let him divorce her by stirring Hosea’s love for Gomer each time she is unfaithful. Hosea 1:2b says: “And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.” God tells him to do this as a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. Even in their departing from the Lord, God was faithful and loved Israel enough to send to them a prophet. He does this in the hope that His children would turn back to Him. Hosea 2:20 says, “I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.” God has betrothed Himself to a bride that He knew would be unfaithful, yet He stays faithful to her. In Revelation we see God’s faithfulness to remove all that hinders His children from loving Him. The judgments in Revelation are the least amount of judgment that will bring the greatest amount of people into the deepest level of love for their God. Israel will once again say with King David: “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 89:1).

It would take me writing a book to tell you of the faithfulness of God in my personal life, but I do want to mention one fact. The same way that Israel has been unfaithful, I have been even more unfaithful to my loving and faithful Lord and Savior. Over and over in my life, I have seen the goodness and kindness of God. However, so many times I have turned my back on my God and chosen to go about life in my own way. I know that it has not been my faithfulness that has kept me loving and following Jesus. I know it is the other way around. It has been His faithfulness that has kept me upon the path. I absolutely love 2 Timothy 2:13, because it sums up my walk with Christ. It says, “If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself.” It is one of the most comforting verses in the Word of God. Trust me. If He can keep me faithful, He can keep anyone faithful. Our God is so AWESOME!

Continuing with Matt 6:33

I truly love this verse. There is so much we can learn from this verse, and so much we can see God do if we will live out this verse. I see so many people seeking after so many different aspects of God. People seek after His power, His manifestations, or His blessings. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. They are all of God. But if you are one of these people, I want to encourage you to begin to seek the face of God. Seek just to get to know Him and know His heart. Seek to find out what He is really like, and then ask Him to conform you into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). That is what we were all created for, to manifest Christ in the midst of a sinful world. The way we do that is to first get to know Him and let Him develop Christ-like character on the inside of us. I truly believe that our wonderful Heavenly Father would not possibly conform us into the image of His Son, send us out into the world, and not give us the authority and power that He gave His Son and has promised to all who believe in His Son and make Him Lord. The problem with us is we are a bunch of 4 year olds spiritually, but we want the keys to our Father’s car now. Our Father is too wise to give the keys to us, because He knows we would wind up hurting ourselves. Let’s make a commitment together. Let’s seek the face of the Lord together. Let’s love the Lord our God with ALL our hearts, ALL our minds, ALL our souls, and with ALL of our strength and see if our Father won’t give us the Keys to the Kingdom. Remember “If ye then, being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ASK Him” Matthew 7:11.

Seeking His Face

I just wanted to take a second and encourage others to live by the Scripture Matt 6:33. I realize it is tough sometimes. Trust me I have had my share of the Christian roller coaster (I know many of you know exactly what I am referring to). But I believe with all my heart, that if we will truly put this verse into action we would see God’s promises come to pass. I know many say that they have tried, and God did not come through. But I also believe Romans 3:4, which says “let God be true and every man a liar.” So many of us get discouraged because of sicknesses or lack of finances. What I believe God does is He not only is willing to answer our prayers but is also willing to work a little Christ-like character into us while we wait PATIENTLY. Remember the Iraelites, when Moses had gone up on the mountain. They had waited 39 days and then they gave up and got Aarron to make the golden calf. When did Moses show up? He showed up on the 40th day. One more day, and that whole epoisode would have never happened. What I am saying is I believe we tend to believe to a certain point and give up, and God is ready to come through had we waited just one more day.

Too Busy for Jesus

I find that if the devil can not keep you from being a Christian, he will try to make you too busy for Jesus. Not too busy to do STUFF in the name of Jesus, but he will try to make you too busy to pray and too busy to study His Holy Word. I am trying to incorporate into my life that if I am too busy to pray, then I am just too busy period. Prayer and the study of the Word must be our highest priority. Loving the Lord with all our hearts, mind, and strength is what we were created for and were told to do. I ask that you would join with me in returning to our first love. Let’s return to the Lord in prayer and reading the Word and watch how God responds.