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Pointers along the way #1148

The groaning in God's heart

- Jacob Ninan

You can listen to this on YouTube

God has feelings too. They are a part of His personality. He longs to have fellowship with us, and that is why He has created us in His image. Before He created us, He took trouble to create the whole universe, tuning every detail of how things need to work for us and make it possible for us to live here. He put everything in place before He created our first ancestors, Adam and Eve. For some period of time, God and they had the best of times in the Garden of Eden. But when those people first faced a choice between what they liked and what God wanted, sadly they chose to exclude God from their consideration.

God had anticipated this possibility before creation itself, and had already made plans to restore relations with man if it happened. The penalty for our sins was death, including total separation from God. The triune God decided to take that punishment on Himself so as to meet the requirements of His justice when He forgave us. We know how Jesus, the Son of God, came as a Man on this earth, and took death in our place, offering us salvation which we do not deserve and which we cannot earn.

By our sins, each of us had alienated us from God, and we had ended up with no eligibility to receive forgiveness from God. That is why we realise that God's offer of salvation through Jesus was entirely a gift of unmerited favour or grace to us. Think of all the trouble God took, all the spiritual, mental and physical pain Jesus went through, all the insult, mockery, abuse and torture He went through for our sake, the innocent Man going through what we deserved.

And then think of how we people responded to this grace! We neglected it, ignored it, ridiculed it, and went seeking our own pleasures! How does God feel about it?

See what God felt about Israel and their response to all that He had done for them. "What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?" (Is.5:4). This next one shows His grief over His children who show no respect to Him and His words, and take Him for granted. "'A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?' says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name" (Mal.1:6). In spite of all the great things He has prepared for His people, they still run after fleeting pleasures. "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water" (Je.2:13).

One serious error is when people believe that salvation is entirely up to God, and keep waiting for Him to change them and make them like Christ. In this process they omit taking responsibility for the choices they make when they are tempted. They continue to please themselves and wonder why they are not being transformed (Lk.9:23). No wonder our God is grieved.

Index
Pointers are available in YouTube video from #789.

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