Is God Gracious?

“To be honest with you, I haven’t thought about God very much lately.” That was the honest admission of the lady sitting in the aisle seat as I was flying out of Atlanta. I was by the window, thankful for the extra elbow room the vacant middle seat afforded. I had let her know that my job was to basically help people get “unstuck” and experience the most life has to offer by getting to know God. I could tell she was curious, though skeptical.

“My grandmother forced religion on all of us, and nobody had the back-bone to refuse her,” she continued. “That was probably smart, since I think she could have whipped us all!” She smiled as she retold the stories of her grandmother’s amazing cooking exploits, and the way she prepared world class meals for their entire clan. I could almost smell the lasagna!

It was clear that this woman’s grandmother, though a great cook, was the strict matriarch of the family, and what she wanted, she got. So the whole family would dutifully trudge off to church on Sundays and for weddings, funerals, baptisms, and holidays. Fed up with church, God, and anything to do with religion, Valerie (not her real name) had fled from her family’s stifling religious tradition as soon as she grew up.

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled from her childhood experiences, Valerie had come to one very clear conclusion: If God had anything to do with her grandmother’s stuffy, straitjacket religion, she wanted nothing to do with Him.

And I could empathize. I wouldn’t want anything to do with a severe, punishing God like that either. But in the next breath, I assured her that God isn’t like that at all.

When she looked at me, I don’t think I was mistaken when I thought I saw something different on her face. I think it was hope.

Sensing that she probably knew very little about the Bible, I just started telling stories from the Gospels. I told her about how Jesus loved to heal people on the Sabbath day and how that drove the religious people crazy because they had put God in a box. They thought they had God all figured out and their box did not include any kind of work, by God or anyone else, on Saturday (the Sabbath). I guess Jesus never got that memo!

I related the story of how a woman caught in adultery had been dragged to Jesus and how the men of that town challenged the Lord with the Jewish legal requirement that she be stoned. And then all the men walked away, dropping their stones and dropping their charges against the woman because Jesus challenged the one who was without sin to hurl the first rock. Pretty shrewd. You see, the Law required at least two witnesses to convict, and when Jesus was the only one left, there was no longer any legal “quorum” to condemn her. Instead, Jesus gave her a new lease on life, a second chance to live the right way, which was His plan all along.

Valerie was drinking it all in like thirsty ground soaking up rainwater. Her face was sending two messages: “Could God REALLY be like this?” and “Tell me more!”

So I did.

I was almost in tears as I told of our Lord cleansing the lowliest of the low of that day, the lepers, touching them when others were running for their lives for fear of catching their disease. Then came the story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume and whom Jesus sent away in peace due to her faith. And on and on I shared, with a passion that could only have come from the Spirit of the Lord.

“I’ve never heard these things before,” she said, shaking her head. “This is so different a picture of God than I was taught.”

As we were preparing to land, I turned to Valerie and said, “I think it’s time that you come to know God as He really is rather than how you’ve been taught.”

“I think I’d like that,” she concluded, nodding her head.

I wonder how many people are like this woman. They have been fed a pack of religious lies about who God is and have, understandably, exited stage left from the Church.

Some people have read or heard bits and pieces of the Old Testament and have formed a picture of God as an angry, wrathful, punishing God. Then they hear stories about Jesus that seem to indicate that He’s a lot different than that—kind, merciful, and caring. And so they are confused. They cringe in fear of the Old Testament God while hoping for clemency from the New Testament Jesus. As a result, many experience religion as an attempt to avoid or appease an angry Father, while hoping that the meek and mild Jesus will take up their cause and help them get into heaven somehow.

What a religious mess!

It is interesting that when Moses got really close to the Old Testament God and asked to see His glory, the Lord Himself made all His goodness pass before him. Since God’s glory is too much for a mere mortal to handle, God protected him and then let Moses see His back. As the Lord passed by, God described Himself. And this is what He said in Exodus 34:6-7:

The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. (NASB)

The way a lot of people would describe God, it would sound more like:

The Lord, the Lord God, mad as hell and angry as a hornet. If you watch your step and keep your nose clean, you might just make it. But I wouldn’t count on it because the Lord knows how much you screw up.

How did God identify Himself in His own words to Moses? Compassionate. Gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in lovingkindness and truth. Forgiving. And yes, He will punish those who are guilty and who reject Him, but would you really have respect for a God who was soft and wishy-washy on sin and who would let the human race get away with murder?

A number of times in the Psalms, God is identified in similar terms to how He revealed Himself to Moses. Psalm 145:8-9 is one of them:

The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works. (NASB)

So what about Jesus? Is He somehow different than the God of the Old Testament? Actually, although it’s a surprise to many, they are exactly the same. Jesus said to Philip:

He who has seen Me has seen the Father. (John 14:9, NASB)

So there you are. Jesus is like the Father and the Father is like Jesus. They are identical in nature. And God, by the way, never changes (Malachi 3:6), and neither does Jesus (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, we can conclude that in nature and character, the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament, and God the Father is the same as God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And God is gracious and merciful.

And if Valerie seeks Him, she will find Him. And she will be filled with joy. And so will you, because He is gracious.

THOUGHT TO CHEW ON

God the Father and Jesus Christ have the same nature, and they are gracious and merciful.

TRUTH TO REMEMBER

“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (Jesus’ words in John 14:9, NASB)

QUESTION TO MULL OVER

Do you see God as someone to run to because He is gracious and merciful, or are you afraid that He is angry, frustrated, or disgusted with you?

Talking it over with God

Dear Father, I wonder if You realize how hard it is to talk to somebody that I can’t see or hear. Often I feel that the words of my prayers don’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m glad You always understand what I mean to say. Anyway, I’ve got to admit that some of the stories in the Bible are pretty scary. After all, You did have a habit in the Old Testament of wiping out large numbers of people. True, they were very wicked, but it makes me afraid that You might see me like them, and then it would be all over. And yet the Bible says that You are gracious and merciful. It’s a little bit hard to wrap my mind around all that, but I want to. And I can see that Jesus is really patient and kind. To realize that You and Jesus are the same and that You are, therefore, patient and kind too, and that You really care about me, well … that’s pretty mind-blowing. But I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that there are things about You that I can’t quite get, since You are God and I’m not. Help me to see that as a good thing. Thanks again for listening. Amen.