Dreaded and Gentle

Our God’s greatest commandment is to love Him. He is a powerful, to be dreaded, God but His desire for us is not to make a trek to Jerusalem every year or to fulfill complicated laws and rules, but He asks us to love Him. All the other gods are concerned with behavior only but what matters to our God is our heart. Granted, once you love Him your behavior changes automatically but it’s because of the change that happens in your heart first and foremost. To me this makes our God beautiful.

And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God Who keeps covenant mercy and loving-kindness with those who love Him and keep His commandments… Daniel 9:4

We love Him…that’s His commandment. But He loved us first. My brother is a policeman. He is feared by some because of the uniform and because he’s a strong personality when he needs to be. He polices mostly schools but he also is called out on other more exciting police duties. However one day he got a call asking for backup to a senior high. A fight was going on. So he responded and was there with two or three other officers that responded also. They all come walking into the building together and a large male student with autism was crying in the hall. “Please don’t come after me! I told them not to call you!” He had ripped a water fountain off the wall due to harassment from some of the other boys. So my brother told him “We’re not after you. We just came to get a drink of water.” 🙂 The kid quieted down. He and my brother went into the room that had been evacuated due to the fight and talked and the kid was fine. My brother was fearful to him at first but gentle because he needed kindness. And the child’s behavior changed due to the gentle way he was treated.

Our God is dreaded like it says in the above verse, but very loving to those who are in need of love or who love him. He gives mercy and loving-kindness and it brings out the love in us if we let His love shine abroad in our hearts.

Add a comment November 1, 2010