I was steaming, and I’m not talking about broccoli.
Yet another nasty encounter with That person. She cursed me with the F-bomb and stalked out of the house. Confrontations like this were common. It wasn’t like walking on eggshells around her – I was stomping on glass.
Trapped in this hateful cycle, I was desperate to break free and more than ready for a little justice.
I scrubbed a blot on the counter like a jailbird sawing at his shackles. Why don’t you do anything, Lord? She does this all the time and she always gets away with it! Nothing ever happens to her! There are never any consequences. None. Why won’t You do something about it? I ranted.
“What do you want Me to do to her?”
Has your mother ever asked you this question? Mine did. A snatched toy, a whack from a tree branch, a teasing comment gone too far. “Mom! Look what she did! Do something!” Then the question every sibling dreads: “So, Janet, what do you want me to do to her?”
After running through several scenarios in my mind, I usually felt sorry for her. “Oh, nothing. Nevermind.”
And on this particular morning, I stopped to consider what kind of justice God should mete out. Kick her out? Trip and fall in a mud puddle? A rude stranger to offend her the way she hurt me? Chicken pox?
I deliberated on various punishments, but none would change her heart or make me feel better.
“Lord, I want her to be sorry for what she said.” More than vengeance, I wanted restoration.
And the Lord feels the same way about us.
Apprehension reigns when we don’t know what to expect from God: is He looking for payback or waiting to forgive? Let’s explore His Word.
What’s does the Bible say about God’s nature: wrathful or merciful?
1. God’s compassion or justice: Two sides of the same coin.
“Because our crimes reek to heaven, and they demand vengeance!” cried the preacher with a face as long as a summer squash. His town was under attack by werewolves, and Mr. Fire-and-Brimstone knew why – God was none-too-pleased with the townsfolks’ naughty doings.
You guessed it – this is a scene from a movie. Hollywood loves to portray the fiery preacher in the pulpit, running with sweat and railing about God’s retribution on sinners.
Does the vengeful God of the Old Testament look little like the loving Savior of the New Testament? In the Old Testament, it’s easy to perceive God as vengeful, angry, and sometimes petty. When Jesus comes along in the New Testament, He is all love, courage, and compassion. Why does God seem so different?
But to look at God as either vengeful or compassionate is to miss the point: God’s righteousness and God’s compassion can’t be separated. They are two sides of the same coin.
If you’ve sinned against God and you’re waiting for the lightning bolt to strike, then turn and look for His mercy.
Are you rebellious but counting on His compassion to delay repenting? Then expect God’s hand of correction.
We can’t emphasize one part of God’s character while minimizing the other. The God of justice is also the author of compassion. And He who is patient with sinners is also holy and just.
We can depend on God’s character: He offers forgiveness we can’t earn, compassion we don’t deserve, and correction that leads us to repentance.
2. God seeks restoration, not revenge.
When we hurt someone’s feelings because we’re having a bad day, our first instinct may be to duck our heads and expect a little tit-for-tat from God. But the Lord’s priority is to restore our relationship with Him.
Part of God’s reputation for wrath comes from horrific details of the devastation God planned for Israel and Judah.
Why would a compassionate God plan such horror for the people He loved?
In the centuries after godly King David, Israel rejected the God of their fathers to worship false gods of the surrounding nations. God described His people as a bride who betrayed Him with innumerable lovers.
So God sent messengers like Isaiah and Jeremiah to warn His people:
For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,
“Break up your fallow ground,
And do not sow among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to the LORD
And remove the foreskins of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire
And burn with none to quench it,
Because of the evil of your deeds.” Jeremiah 4:3-4 NASB
The prophets painted a gruesome picture: Burning cities empty of inhabitants, the bodies of young and old strewn on the ground and unburied, children in chains limping to a foreign land.
These prophecies of doom are dramatic and memorable.
But what’s easy to forget is how long the Lord appealed to His bride to turn from sin before He judged her: A whole generation lived and died while Isaiah and Jeremiah preached impending disaster and begged God’s people to repent.
The prophets pleaded and argued so long that the people stopped paying attention.
Why did He entreat Israel and Judah so long?
God gave them time to return to Him and be forgiven so He could reestablish a loving relationship.
“Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say,
‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not look upon you in anger.
For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not be angry forever.” Jeremiah 3:12 NASB
Despite rejection, God sought restoration. Despite betrayal, He called His beloved back to Him. Before He judged, He sought to justify His bride through repentance that leads to forgiveness.
Remember Peter’s words:
“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NASB)
Jesus also showed God’s heart for people when He mourned:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” Matthew 23:37 NASB
The God who pleaded with His people for a century will open His arms with joy for you, too.
3. God is patient, giving people time to repent. He is not in a hurry to punish.
Does it ever frustrate you that the girl who threw spitballs at your head in seventh-grade English Lit class never got her comeuppance?
Often we want God’s patience for ourselves, but when we’ve been wronged, then payback can’t be swift enough.
Jonah felt the same way.
Jonah got an assignment no prophet would want: preach God’s looming judgment on the cutthroat citizens of Nineveh – and invite them to turn from their wickedness. The people of Nineveh were famous for their cruelty: victorious soldiers were known to skin their enemies.
Jonah tried ducking God, but he eventually ended up in Nineveh and told those nasty Ninevites that God was about to overthrow the city. Jonah couldn’t wait.
But the hard-hearted residents believed God and humbled themselves, from the king on his throne to the beggar on the street.
And God, in His infinite and puzzling compassion, forgave them.
“Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.” Jonah 3:10 NKJV
And guess what? Jonah was mad! He wanted those bloodthirsty people to get what was coming to them. As melodramatic as ever, Jonah preferred death rather than living to see Nineveh unpunished.
He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” Jonah 4:2-3 NASB
Jonah learned an important lesson that also applies to us: If God pitied the wicked people of Nineveh when they turned from sin, then won’t He show tender compassion to you – His own child?
Unlike Jonah, God is not quick to punish: He desires repentance, not revenge. The Lord’s compassion is expressed by patience: before He disciplines you, He will give you time to repent.
As poet Robert Frost observed: “After Jonah, you could never trust God not to be merciful again.”
4. For believers, punishment is for course correction, not payback.
Nothing is going right in your life: Is God disciplining you?
Maybe.
God disciplines His children. And if you’re His child, then you’re going to be corrected.
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12:6 NASB
I used to think that God was out to get me when I did something wrong.
But motherhood changed my perspective: the purpose of discipline is training, correcting behavior, realigning to a godly point of view, and restoring relationships.
My boys are not targets of revenge, but objects of my love. My job is to raise them to love the Lord. When I discipline my sons, it’s to redirect them onto this path.
In the same way, it’s our Father’s job to make us like Christ.
Like a potter with clay, God’s discipline cuts away whatever is unnecessary or harmful. With every stroke of His thumb He pushes clay into place and pulls down what doesn’t belong. He molds and reshapes you until one day the face gazing at Him resembles Christ.
Discipline is not revenge – it reveals God’s heart for you.
(Another kind of discipline does not result from sin. John Piper speaks eloquently on discipline as character development in this podcast: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-do-i-know-if-i-m-being-disciplined-by-god)
5. Repentance restores the relationship, and Christ paid your debt. So stop looking over your shoulder.
As humans, we rebel at the idea of getting something for nothing. Murderers should go to prison (or worse). A gallon of milk costs a $3.99. If we’re nice to someone, she should be nice to us.
So we’re suspicious when God forgives us without expecting payment in return. It’s hard to accept His unconditional forgiveness: we look over our shoulders, waiting for the car to break down or to end up in bed with the flu as recompense for sniping at our husbands or being harsh with our children.
But God doesn’t make us pay because Christ already paid the debt.
As Christians, we know this. But do we practice this belief every day? Or do we walk around worrying about when our debt is due as if God’s a creditor haunting our steps?
We access His forgiveness when we repent. Repenting means to turn completely around.
A pastor once taught his son the meaning of repentance: He cuddled his son on his lap and said, “Matthew, when I say Go! jump off my lap and run away. But when I say Repent! then turn around and run back to my arms.”
“Ready? Go!” The boy ran from his father. “Okay, Matthew, now repent!” The son stopped, turned around, and ran back into daddy’s arms.
If sin is making you run from God, repent and return to His arms. You are freely forgiven because of Christ’s payment for you.
Repentance realigns our hearts with God. And God applies the blood of Christ to our sin so that it’s paid for and our relationship with Him is restored.
Freedom from sin can be summed up in three words: Paid. In. Full.
6. If God is so compassionate and patient when we sin, will there ever be justice for the evils of the world?
We’ve focused on God’s compassionate and forgiving nature, but we cannot forget the other side of the coin: God is utterly holy. His holiness can’t allow sin to go unpunished forever.
God is patient with sinners because the consequences of sin are monumental.
Eternity with God, the author of all goodness, wonder, and light. Or forever apart from God, separated from anything remotely good because God is absent.
“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36 NASB
The price of sin is high, unimaginable. And so God’s compassion and patience are unfathomable.
The Bible says that God is giving everyone time to repent. But one day time will be up. We will all be judged by Him who sits on the throne.
“And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:12 NASB
A few hours after the bitter encounter with my sister, she texted me: I apologize about how rude I was this morning, stressed out not that that’s an excuse but anyway…for what it’s worth.
I stared at my screen for a moment, and smiled. I guess You know what you’re doing after all, I thought.
God isn’t out to get you, He’s out to get you back home. Your Father watched you grow in faith like a mother who delights in her baby. He looked with pleasure when you jumped with joy at your new relationship in Christ. He observed with pride as you stepped out in obedience. He responded with correction when you dashed into dangerous paths. And He knelt with arms opened wide when you ran back to Him. In Christ, you are never His enemy, but His child.
Lord, You are truly the God of compassion, slow to anger, quick to forgive, patient with sinners, full of justice, yet ready to justify us by the blood of Christ.