Saturday, July 17th  – God Feels

God grieves when any person rejects him and goes down to destruction. This is what Hosea 11:8 says: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” The language of the verse is that of lover rejected by the beloved. God is in tears. He would have done anything for Israel, anything to save them. We have the image of God standing not just before Israel, but standing before every sinner with tears and weeping, begging that sinner to turn back from his sin, to turn away from his evil doings.

A God of love never wants any person to be lost. But God has created us with free will and made us responsible for the exercise of our free will which implies that the only person who is responsible for me going to heaven or to hell is me in other words the only person who can send you to heaven or hell is you.

God wants to save everyone, but not everyone wants to be saved. And when a person finally rejects God, when a person entirely decides to give up on God, God, in tears, reluctantly gives them up. They compel God to give them up.

In Jesus, we find the feelings of God most perfectly expressed. Christ showed God’s feelings for us. Christ taught us that God has the feelings and heart of a Father. A guilty child knows that a father’s heart can be moved to forgiveness. Even so, we know that however guilty we are in our sins, our Father in heaven yearns over us and longs to forgive us and save us from hell. All that we have to do is to accept God’s forgiveness and accept his love. We are dealing with a God who loves infinitely well and grieves infinitely deeply when the beloved discards him.

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