Agape

I have been thinking about the heart of God.
The heart of God being that part of him that is intellect and will and emotion and intent and behavior and so on and so on....The very thing that makes God.....God.
I don't want to attribute to God in any shape form or fashion the idea that he is on a human level. In truth, we are created in the image of him, not him in the image of us.
That image being that we are a 3 fold being........body, soul, and spirit.


We house a sin nature, whereas God does not. He is free from sin.
Did you ever truly think about that?
God has no sin.
Oh, as Jesus walked this earth, he experienced the force and tug of sin through temptation, but never gave in.
But where God is, sin is not a problem.
Imagine what it is going to be like to live everyday free from the influence of sin. 
Free from the emotional strain of the battle of dealing with sin.
To be able to think, act and feel free from the presence of sin, the power of sin. That is cool times 10.
It is going to happen. Scripture says that Jesus has prepared a place for me to dwell with him.
Can't wait to see it.

I guess the big thing I think of when I think about God's heart, is his capacity to love.
Why love?
Because it absolves me of the wrong I've done.
It is this part of God that kept the judgement side from coming down on me by providing a way for him to have relationship with me, a sinner. he reached out to mankind, when mankind could not reach Him.
God solved his own problem of dealing with the payment for sin.
He made the payment himself.

I think the greatest example of God's love for us is found in Genesis 3.
Now I've never really read this chapter and saw it as God's love. I tended to lean toward "They-messed-up-boy-is-God-mad-or-what" kind of deal. But if you read the chapter you will not see any anger at all.
You see a God who comes down and deals with the problem that is beyond dealing with if you were the man or the woman in the garden.
Even though Adam and Eve and have sinned and have fallen prey to the serpent's schemes, God shows up in the garden just like he did every afternoon (are at least that is what I am reading into it). God must have come down as day was changing over to night and would walk with the couple. Well, God shows up just like he did time after time, knowing full well what has taken place yet he gives the couple an opportunity to repent. You know, If it had of been me...........I'd probably stormed into the garden yelling and screaming, "O.k.! O.k.! Every body out of the pool! That's it...you blew it."  Aren't you glad that I didn't get the job of being God? Me too.

But God shows up....speaks to each of the guilty parties...
Man.....You're going to work and sweat and it is not going to be fun.
Woman....You're going to have a lot of pain when you give birth.
Serpent......It's on now. There is going to be someone on down the line that is going to crush your head.
Then with every one standing there God did something that they (the man and woman) had not been able to do do. God killed animals.........shed their blood (Hebrews 9:22 --without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness for sin) and made clothing and coverings for the man and the woman. God instituted an act that brought forgiveness to them. 
No where in this entire chapter do we see God hating on the couple.
Berating them or casting them aside. You know it would have been easy to just take them out and create two more, but that isn't God's way. He met the problem head on and instituted the answer to the sin question. God's love complimented the judgement side. For that, I am grateful!

It is this part of God, his heart and capacity to love his creation, that stirs me to follow him...to live for him.
I see John 3:16 in new light this morning....
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
God is in the business of working and carrying out his plan to rescue and restore his creation.
That is why we turn to Jesus as our higher Power.
He alone is the answer to every addiction battle we face.
He alone is the love we so desperately need to be overwhelmed by.
He is the completeness for every thing we lack to face this day.
Why?
Because he loves.....
That is why.

God on you......
mb