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Exodus 34.6, 7 (NIV) “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and
gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining
love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not
leave the guilty unpunished.”
Numbers 14.18 (NIV) The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and
forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.
Psalm 86.15 (NIV) But you, O lord, are a compassionate and gracious
God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Psalm 103.8, 10 (NIV) The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to
anger, abounding in love. . . . [H]e does not treat us as our sins deserve or
repay us according to our iniquities.
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| God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.* |
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Interviewing
for a job challenges our ability to balance just the right amount of modesty
with a healthy dose of self-confidence. We can be proud of our accomplishments
but we don’t want to come across as over-confident . . . unless we have God’s
résumé. Yes, the verse quoted above from Exodus, contains God’s words about
himself. I can picture the bullet-points on God’s résumé listing his strengths
(no weaknesses!):
But,
in the interest of full disclosure, he adds:
If
the verses in Exodus are his résumé, then the verses in Numbers and Psalms are
his references, verifying and attesting to his character. The psalmist is
careful to say only good things but the “reference” from the book of Numbers is
brutally honest, listing all the wondrous attributes of God then scrupulously
including the qualifier: he does not leave the guilty unpunished.
If
this were a real résumé, the applicant would now have to go on to explain how
such contradictory attributes can live in the same person. It could be a rather
lengthy document, say about the size of the Old and New Testaments, but it
might be condensed for the sake of the résumé: "God does not leave the guilty
unpunished but we are no longer guilty because of the blood of Jesus.”*
A
pretty impressive résumé! Now we have all the information we need to determine
that he is the only qualified applicant for the job!
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| The most wonderful truth revealed in all of the word of God is that mercy stands higher than the law as the guiding principle of God's relationship with men.* |
*Quote sources available upon request.
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