How Beautiful

"Abba prefers mercy."

WE ARE people of compassion. Evil ideology never saved anyone, in the church or out of it. "Turn or burn" may cause salvation through fear, but our Father isn't fear. 2 Timothy 1:7. And what trust in God does that man or woman gain from being afraid of Him?

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

When you shout someone’s mistakes at them, they don't cling to the cross. They turn aside. Hell is a fact. So is heaven. And our Father is asking us to show love, to refuse hate and be peaceful.

If you are threatening people with judgment, you aren't like Him and don't know Him. At all. He is mercy. He is compassion. He proved it at the cross.

God — Father, Son, and Spirit — gave me a picture of the temple that brought me to these thoughts. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says we are now temples where God abides. He fills us with all He is. But the temple, or tabernacle, of Old Testament history was designed by God to picture Christ, who is all three of Them. They are Christ.

The picture He showed me was not what many assume. It is our assumptions I am continually speaking of to you. We've made a boatload of them in the church. For one, the idea I spoke of yesterday that in Gethsemane, Jesus was pleading to avoid the cross. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. For another, that God — Father and Spirit — abandoned Him in His dying moments. No! Jesus said, “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me (John 16:32).” They are ONE, in perfect unity and will not be separated.

And what God showed me, where the temple's image is concerned, we've made it all Jesus and placed His Father (our Father) outside of that.

Instead, the temple is the Father, and the sacrifices with all their operations, are inside of Him and cherished by Him. "He is Greater," Jesus says in John 14:28. I remind you again, the Father is the fire which consumed the sacrifice. He savors the incense of our prayers, and He cradles, there on the altar, the Lamb slain. How beautiful this is, and how tender that God who parted seas and blessed the dust to live and move and have His being, would so cup life in His hands and bless our future.

We think He forgets deaths. We think He rejoices in judgment. But no, that is our behavior, although we are made in His image and should be like Him. Abba prefers mercy. He can make mountain ranges and the deepest seas, yet He knows the number of hairs on our heads and the family lines of sparrows (Luke 12:6-7).

"That one has many offspring," He said to me one day, and I wept. For who am I?

Valuable. To Him, I am worth something. And so are you. How much more is Jesus then, who knew the ending of the cross and Resurrection, who realized pain for the first time in His beatings and crucifixion, and died surrounded by heaven. The Father will one day make of death a fragrance beyond comprehension. Not to remember it. But to overwhelm it forever. He must be like Him.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

Photo by derek braithwaite on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com