Ever wonder where people get their "theories" on God? Some people think that He's some sort of tyrant waiting to smash us! Some people say some weird things about Him and call Him things like "the Man upstairs."
...but, what does God say?
God describes Himself in Exodus chapter 34. In order to actually understand God, we must go to Him and His own words to see what He has to say about Himself. That would be a good place to start, right? LOL!
You can read the whole thing starting in verse 1 later. I am going to focus on just a few.
Exodus 34:5-7
5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him (Moses) as [c]he called upon the name of the LORD. 6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and [d]truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guiltyunpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Now, I am going to break it down for you.
First of all, we need to know what God's name is! He says it in the Hebrew manuscripts (God wrote the Old Testament in Hebrew). Yahweh. Yahweh is His name! He tells us that in verse 6. Anytime in the Old Testament you see the word "LORD" that is Yahweh!
So God Himself says, "Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth..."
The word "compassionate" means: womb love (the kind of love a mother has for the child in her womb ~ deep)
The word "gracious" means: favor (delight, acceptance, pleasure)
The word "lovingkindness" means: covenant love. You can break your end of a covenant or agreement but He won't break His!!!! He IS Love! (1 John 4:8)
So what is God saying?
My name is Yahweh and I AM God. I am compassionate and full of deep, deep love for you. I am gracious and full of favor, delight, acceptance, and pleasure. I am the keeper of lovingkindness, the Covenant Love; the love that I won't break!
Hallelujah!!!!
Now, some people would choose to focus on the part of verse 7 that says, "...yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished..." The problem with that is, we are NOT the guilty!!!!!!! When we have accepted Jesus Christ and His forgiveness, our sins are GONE! Amen!! That means: NOT guilty! Woooohooo!! (Romans 8:1)
So, since we are already found "NOT guilty" because of the blood of Jesus, lets choose to focus on the rest of what God says about Himself!
- Compassionate
- DEEP love
- Gracious
- Full of favor, acceptance, pleasure
- The Keeper of Lovingkindness
- The One who won't break His covenant with us
- He IS love!
How does this make you feel?
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