What is Most Natural to God
Good morning, Immanuel. God delights to be merciful and gracious toward you today. Will you let Him love you?
“They went after other gods…and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger” (Judges 2:12).
Perhaps one of the most striking realities of the Bible is that it reveals God’s character to us. Through the Scriptures, we can have a clear—although not exhaustive—understanding of who God really is. One aspect of God’s character revealed to us in the Bible is His wrath and anger toward sin. Sin’s M.O. is to pollute and corrupt God’s good creation, and God hates that. However, despite our deepest intuitions, this hatred and wrath toward sin is not what flows most naturally from God’s heart.
We may think of God as stingy with His grace or fundamentally angry and eager to vent that anger. However, if you read through the Bible, you will notice that overwhelmingly, God’s anger and wrath must be “provoked” (Josh. 23:16; Deut. 9:7, 31:17, 31:29, 32:21). What flows most naturally from God’s heart, though, is revealed to us by God Himself in Exodus 34:6 when God communicates His M.O. and says, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” Unlike His anger, at no point in the Scriptures do we read that God must be provoked to graciousness and mercy. God does not need to be provoked toward these things because, at bottom, grace and mercy flow most naturally out of Him—from His very heart.
Immanuel family, God delights to be merciful and gracious toward you today. Will you let Him love you?
Wonderful, true. Thank you so much Dylan 🙏🏼