“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’”.-Isaiah 41:13

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. – 1 John 4:18.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.-Psalm 103:8

His Love Will Drive Away Fear

You cannot out sin God’s patience.
You cannot reach the end of His love.
You can be sure you will always have God’s mercy.
He will never say that He’s had enough.

He will protect you no matter how you’ve sinned.
He will extend to you His never ending grace.
He will endure in His love and not give up.
He will walk beside you no matter the pace.

Don’t ever fear that God is done with you.
That’s a sign that the enemy is near.
God is not in the business of forsaking.
 His perfect love will drive away fear.

Sometimes we forget who our God is.
That His ways are not the ways of man.
Sometimes when we can’t understand Him
We begin to believe we have a better plan.

But leaning on our own understanding
Usually, doesn’t turn out too well.
Isn’t that exactly what the devil did
Just before he was cast into Hell?

When you think that you cannot trust God
It’s a sign that the enemy is near
God is not in the business of forsaking
Let His perfect love drive away your fear.

Do you fear you have pushed God too far,
Making you the one He will forsake?
After all that God has forgiven mankind
What is so different about your mistake?

So will you please stop walking cautiously?
Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
God has been patient for 4000 years or more
I don’t think your sins will make Him stop.

When you fear God has forsaken you
That’s a sign the enemy is near.
God is in the business of forgiving.
Let His perfect love drive away your fear.
Linda Troxell © 03/08/2019

God’s Love Will Drive Away the Fear
“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’”.-Isaiah 41:13

Have you ever wondered if there’s a limit to God’s patience? Have you ever, in your desperate need for Him to give you direction, called out to God asking Him to help you but then ignored or rebelled when the Holy Spirit nudged you in the right direction? I sure have. I cannot count the times I have called out to God to tell me what to do and then, without waiting for His answer, did the thing I wanted to do before I asked for His help.

Frankly, it amazes me that despite those behaviors, God is still faithful in taking care of me and that He blesses my life. Of course, God knows that we humans are fickle, weak, and sinful. He knows that, on our own, we cannot live a life holy enough to be in a relationship with Him. He knows because, well He’s God. But also because He has spent 4 thousand plus years trying to teach us to live sinless lives.

Even with the creator of the universe as our teacher, we were never able to meet the requirements. If I were God, every one of us, beginning with Adam and Eve, who messed up the sweetest deal imaginable, would have been struck by lightning. Honestly, if I didn’t know that the perfect love of Jesus had solved the problem of our righteousness, I would be very frightened for our future.  –There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made
perfect in love. – 1 John 4:18.

I am grateful that our God is not an impulsive, impatient, fickle and hot-headed human, as I am. I feel so blessed that instead, He is slow to anger, longsuffering toward us, and ever faithful in His patience.

God is Slow to Anger
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.-Psalm 103:8

I hear people talk all the time about the God of the Old Testament being angry and vengeful. They say that whenever He got angry or ran out of patience, He sent plagues, or destroyed cities, even whole populations. Or destroyed the whole earth with a flood, killing everyone and everything. And I can’t argue, those things did happen.

But when you look at it in context, God was really pretty patient. I mean, look at it from His point of view. He starts out creating a really spectacular world and then makes man in His image with a plan to have a perfect and harmonious relationship. When He finished, He was very pleased. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day. Genesis 1:31.

Then, after resting for a day He began to get to know His people by walking in the garden and talking with them. But before He could get too far, the humans He created and who were living in paradise, let sin into the world by breaking the only rule He had given them.

I’m sure God was disappointed; I dare say it broke His heart. But He didn’t do anything vengeful or destructive. If He had lived up to His vengeful reputation, I would not be here to write about it. There would be no me, no here and no writing. Because, God would have just given up on those crazy humans, calling it a failed experiment.

But He didn’t give up. Of course, there were consequences; they were banished from the garden, she would have pain in childbirth, he would work hard for very little yield. But what good father doesn’t discipline His children to teach them that their behavior has consequences?

God still had high hopes for His new creation. But from there His beloved humans and their descendants just became more and more wicked. By the time Noah appeared on the scene 1600 years later, the rulers were claiming to be half God and demanded to be worshipped.

The people were not just evil but constantly evil with no desire to be Godly or do good things. And the level of violence was intolerable. It was beyond the violence expected from wars fought over jealousy and greed. This was violence with no point other than to be malicious and oppressive.

God had been patient for thousands of years; He had given His humans every benefit of the doubt. But when He saw that all of the inhabitants of the earth, save for Noah and his family, were evil and beyond redemption, He knew He had to do something drastic. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.-Genesis 6:5. So He decided to start from scratch.

 Yes, God destroyed the earth along with its evil inhabitants.  But He didn’t destroy mankind. As much as God wanted to rid the earth of these unredeemable people, He didn’t want to give up on mankind. And there was one man, along with his family, who God viewed as redeemable. Noah had found grace in God’s eyes. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. –Genesis 6:7-8.  So, God chose Noah and his family to save mankind and all the animals of the earth, from extinction.

Many of us choose to focus on the flood as another example of a vengeful God. We are horrified when we think about all of the people who drowned and of the children who were killed. But by focusing on that part of the story, we miss the real point of the story.

What we should focus on is that after thousands and thousands of years of disappointment and heartbreak caused by the beings He created for the sole purpose of loving and being loved, when He chose to destroy it all, God still gave mankind a means of escape. God did not destroy mankind. He destroyed only the men of that time who could not be redeemed. God gave mankind a means of survival because He loves us and is longsuffering toward His children.

God is Longsuffering Toward Us
But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.-Psalms 86:15

The dictionary defines longsuffering as having or showing patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people.  Now, God, who is not only perfect but the only measure of perfection, has no troubles but for those caused by other people. And He has been very patient in spite of those troubles.

After the flood, as He watched the people and animals disembark, God was probably optimistic. He probably thought to Himself, “This is a brand new start. This time it will be better; this time my people will be better.”  And so, when Noah made a sacrifice to God and God smelled the pleasing aroma of burnt offerings He pledged to never again destroy all living things, even though He knew that the hearts of men are evil.  And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.-Genesis 8:21. To seal the pledge God established a covenant with Noah and his descendants. As a sign of this covenant, He set a rainbow in a cloud.

But within a hundred years, a mere eyeblink for God, He learned that the flood had not really changed anything. For, it was only a hundred years from the flood when man started to build the Tower of Babel in an attempt to rid themselves of the need for God. Their idea was if they could make a building high enough they could reach heaven. They thought if they could get to heaven they could be like God and then they would have no need of Him. I have to believe this was heartbreaking for God. However, in His disappointment, He was neither destructive nor vengeful. He didn’t destroy anything; He didn’t even punish anyone. He merely separated the people so they couldn’t continue on with their project;

When I hear people criticize the God of the Old Testament as impatient, angry, destructive, and vengeful, I think about the astounding things our God has put up with from His children. Why just the 40 years spent in the wilderness for what should have been an 11-day hike would have been enough to make a lesser god send down fire and brimstone on the Israelites.

But our God Didn’t punish His children. Instead, When they were hungry and there was no food in sight, He sent manna from heaven. When there was no food to eat, He literally made food fall from the sky. And what did the hungry Israelites do when they saw food falling from the sky? Of course, they fall down on their faces and worship this amazing God who, when they were hungry, made food where there was no food? Right?  No, they complained because they couldn’t have cucumbers, melons and leeks, oh, and no garlic, like they could in Egypt. And still, God was faithful in His patience.

God is Ever Faithful in His Patience
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,-2 Peter 3:15

Had God given up on mankind after the flood and the tower of Babel, none of us could have blamed Him. Had He walked away after the 40 days in the wilderness, it would be completely understandable. But it is our great, good fortune that God chose not to give up on us. Being loving and faithfully patient, He chose then, as He continues to choose now, to forgive man’s stubbornness and stick with us. He has continued to believe we can be sanctified to come into relationship with Him despite the thousands and thousands of years in which He has so often had to call upon His patience for us, again and again, as we continue to sin.

For anyone who has read the Old Testament, it’s no secret that the Israelites were not very good at keeping God’s laws. And, if you’ve read that same Old Testament you know that, on the other hand, God, the same God who has the reputation of being vengeful, was very slow, thoughtful and deliberate in actually punishing His people. There was actually very little destruction or vengeance, in response to ordinary sin.

What caused God to become angry, destructive and vengeful was not simple mistakes, but injustice. It was treachery, violence, and cruelty, things that deliberately destroyed communities. Actions that destroyed people’s safety, trust, and innocence. Because, our God who is patient, loving, forgiving and long-suffering, is also a God of justice. Justice demands that sin is punished. Simple sin or mistakes were punished with simple consequences. Injustices, however,  simply wasn’t tolerated.

And I would submit that for simple sins or mistakes what God did was not a punishment at all, it was discipline and teaching, designed for the protection of His people.  God needed to teach the Israelites, whom He had just brought out of slavery, how to live as free men. They had been told what to do and when to do it for so many years, they did not know how to make safe and responsible decisions for themselves.  They also needed to learn how to discern those who were trustworthy from those who were not. He had to teach them to protect themselves from injustice, treachery, and violence. And they needed to learn before they could survive in the Promised Land.

To that end, God disciplined them to teach them right from wrong when they made the wrong choices. If God truly was the angry, vengeful God He has the reputation for being, I don’t think the Israelites would have made it to the promised land at all. As it was it took 40 years to complete an 11-day trip. That’s how much they had to learn.

God is very determined to turn His children from sin. Yes, it is because God is holy and can’t abide sin. And yes, it is because sin is a rebellion against God. But those only contribute to the true reason God can’t abide sin in His children. The most important reason is that the wages of sin are death. We have all heard this a million times. But how often have we stopped to really understand it?

Sin is that which opposes God. It is a rebellion and rejection of God.  God is eternal life. Therefore, sin is a rejection of eternal life. The rejection of God results in our separation from God; that is, our separation from eternal life. Separation from eternal life is death. The wages of sin is eternal death. God does not want even one of his children to succumb to eternal death, therefore, despite His patience,  He cannot abide sin.

 But will God’s Patience Last Forever?
“A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed —without remedy.” Proverbs 29:1

 Please don’t misunderstand me when I say that we can’t wear out God’s patience. I say that with the assumption that we are not playing games with God. I guess I should be clear about that. When I talk of God’s limitless patience, His faithfulness in forgiving our sin, I am talking about those of us who are serious about our walk with God. Those of us who are trying to grow in Christ. Those of us who are truly repentant. Whereas God’s patience for confessed sin from a truly repentant sinner cannot be exhausted, He has no patience for an unrepentant sinner. And He can’t be fooled. I sure hope that goes without saying.

God knew that His children, whom He loved so much, were not capable of being sin free on their own. He knew that they would all succumb to eternal death if He didn’t do something different. And He knew that sin requires death to redeem it. So, God sent His Son to redeem our sin with His own death. Jesus took on all of our sin, past, present, and future and He died to pay for it.

Washed clean by the blood He shed during His agonizing death on the cross, the need for punishment of sin was met for all time. All sin was paid for in full that moment on the cross when Jesus declared. “It is finished”. Sin demands retribution. When Jesus died and was resurrected, the need for retribution was met. God forgave our past sins and does not see our present sin. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” –Romans 8:12 

In the Old Testament God never came to the end of His patience and never punished without warning. Under the old covenant, He had prophets who warned people of their impending doom. They were warned multiple times and given ample time to do something about it before God acted. If you remember, that’s how Jonah ended up in the belly of the great fish.

God is the same today, tomorrow and always He never changes. And so, He has given plenty of warning that this world will end when Jesus returns. God sent Jesus, as He sent the prophets of the Old Testament, as a warning to us that there is a deadline set for the repentance of our sins.

In turn, with the great commission, Jesus appointed His disciples, and by extension us, to spread the good news of the gospels to all the nations. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”-Matthew 28: 18-20. We are God’s modern-day prophets. It is our job to spread, with the gospels, the word that this world will end when Jesus returns.

God is merciful and extends His grace whenever He can. It has been more than 2000 years since Jesus came and God is still extending His grace for those who are not saved to get saved. He gives warning after warning in the hope that we will listen and no one will have to pay the eternal price.

He couldn’t have made it easier for us to be saved from sin. All we have to do is to confess our sin and accept Jesus as the Son of God who will save us. We only need to believe that it’s true. I wouldn’t play around with that, however. Because although God is exceedingly patient and gives plenty of notice before taking serious action when He’s ready it will happen without further warning. And there won’t be another chance. Please don’t wait.

Let’s Pray:
Lord, we glorify you for being so loving, slow to anger, patient, and longsuffering toward us. We know that you do everything you can to bring us into a relationship with you, without breaching free will. We know it breaks your heart when you see your children living in ways that will keep them from being saved. So, today we lift them up to you in the prayer. Lord, may they turn to you in time. Lord, we are grateful that in your love and mercy you sent Jesus to redeem our sins when we were unable to. We are so thankful that through Him we now have a relationship with you. We know that Jesus is returning soon and that then those who are lost will remain lost. We pray each and every day, that more and more people will hear your word, feel your love, worship you and pledge their lives to you. Today, we ask you, Lord, to direct the Holy Spirit to give a nudge to those who are on the fence about being saved, praying that they will fall on the right side of that fence We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

 

Points for Pondering and Prayer  

OR    

Perhaps for Putting Pen to Paper

• Have you ever wondered about whether you could wear out God’s patience? Were you worrying about something in particular? What? Did you come to a conclusion about this? What was it?

• Have you heard people talk about the anger and vengeance of the God of the Old Testament? Do you agree that the Old Testament God is different from the New Testament God? If you do give some reasons and examples.

• I described God as slow to anger, longsuffering toward us and ever faithful in His patience for us. What are three traits you might use to describe God?

• The dictionary defines longsuffering as having or showing patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people. Write about something in the Bible when people caused problems for God. Is there something in the story to indicate God was long-suffering in the situation?