Day 21
“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
Matthew 14:14 ESV
How does our Creator see us?
There is a significant difference between how we view ourselves, how we experience life, and how Jesus did. While it’s clear that during the time of His incarnation on the earth there were some things known to the Father which were veiled to Him for a time, He did still have knowledge about who He was, what His mission on the earth was and things that would happen to Him. For Jesus, the cross, and all of the pain and rejection that came with it, was always set before Him.
With that knowledge came knowing who would reject Him, who would betray Him, who would soon be yelling crucify Him! How would you treat someone that you knew was only hanging around for a free meal? How would you have treated the trusted friend who stabbed you in the back if you had known about it before it happened? Jesus knew these things. He knew what they would all do. And when He saw them in pain, in sickness, in bondage, He was moved with compassion.
God’s wrath is real, but it is not human wrath. He doesn’t punish us because we hurt His feelings. We incur His wrath rightfully through our repeated rebellions. The fact that we find the concept of God’s wrath offensive proves that we don’t understand how truly rebellious we are. We are like the child who gets angry that we are in trouble saying, “Well, he shouldn’t have been in my way!” even after the kid we just shoved is lying crying and bleeding on the pavement. That, times infinity, because the one we are shoving, spitting on, rejecting and abusing is Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. And God, seeing how we would treat Him, knowing the choices we would make before we even existed to be able to make them, looked at us in our sin, in our anger, in our rejection, in our rebellion, and was moved with compassion.
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Romans 5:6-11 ESV