God is Almighty. God is Omnipotent. God is sovereign. God is all powerful. God is infinite.
Have you ever considered the fact that God could, in His all consuming power, choose to be cruel? He could use His power in ways that are designed to harm, not to do good. He could, but He doesn’t. It isn’t because He doesn’t have the power or ability. It is because He chooses to love. God is agape, which is a love of the will, a choice to love unconditionally. Even though He may not always feel good about me, He always loves me and always chooses my best.
Have you ever thought about what your sin does to the heart of God? How it pains and grieves Him? When we begin to grow in our knowledge of Him, intimately relating with an infinite and personal God, and live in the reality of the fact that God chooses to love us even when we reject Him, it begins to capture our hearts and you can’t help but ask “why would I want to hurt a God like that ever again?!”
Some may claim that God is impassionate, but the entire written Word of God reveals a God who chooses to be our Father, adopting us as His children, placing us in His hands, inviting us into His home and over His threshold, killing the fattened calf for us (as though we were kings) and running to us and hugging us even when we are still covered with the filth of the world. Amazing. We see Jesus weeping, praying for us, calling us to follow Him, walk with Him, and share in His laughter and tears.
All through the bible the word “know,” when talking about knowing God, is an experiential knowledge, not just a head or factual knowledge. It is the kind of knowledge that is gained in complete openness, nakedness, and intimacy, just as Adam knew Eve. It necessarily involves the heart, soul, mind, and the will. It is something that can only be shared in close contact and relationship. It is achieved through constant communication. And God calls us to that. He calls us to love with all our hearts, souls and minds and He tells us to pray without ceasing, talking WITH Him and listening to Him. It involves more than a love affair with knowledge and written words; it is a real, daily discussion with a living and holy Daddy! We are His children and we can hear and know His voice. Listen to and for Him always! (As an aside, do you realize how many voices you know, even of people you’ve never met (singers, actors, someone you work with from another office you’ve never met but talk to on the phone frequently)? Scripture makes it clear we, as His children and as His sheep, know His voice, too.)
He also demonstrates it. When He tells us to put others’ interests above our own, guess what, He has done the same. Although He could be anything in His sovereignty and could have written off humanity, He chose to restore the relationship we broke in the Garden of Eden oh so long ago. He put His own interest in saving His Son from the cross beneath our interest in being restored to Him through the death of Jesus on the cross. Amazing Grace, how absolutely and utterly unfathomable it is.