Power and Love

I made a discovery the other day as I was reading from Revelation chapter 4 about the throne of God. Certain passages in the Bible I like to return to often and try to visualize and dig into and ask questions around. This is one of them. God is sitting on a throne. Angels and various creatures around Him. What does all this mean? In verse 5 it talks about seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. God's seven Spirits? What is that? I have always heard you should let scripture explain scripture. Well, Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2 tells us what the seven Spirits of God are:

Spirit of the Lord Spirit of wisdom Spirit of understanding Spirit of counsel Spirit of might Spirit of knowledge Spirit of the fear of the Lord

And then verse 3 adds for good measure: His delight is in the fear of the Lord. This is all good! But still... As I was meditating on those words they all seemed a bit hard, masculine, authoritative, very much like you would describe a king in those days. They are power words. But what about all the soft, feminine side of Gods, his loving, caring, tender, gentle ways? It was then I made the discovery (in verse 3) that blew me away.

And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.

The rainbow - God's love, goodness, faithfulness, loving-kindness, mercy, grace, gentleness etc is all around Him, shining like emerald. He is a king, but He is a loving Father. As He reigns in power, He does it in perfect love, even humility. The rainbow is all around Him. I don't know how He does it. We can keep on meditating on this forever. King David wrote about it in Psalm 62:

"One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: “Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”

The Lord's rebuke

One thing I have learned is that I tend to read the Bible "backwards". When you are poisoned with a religious thinking it is like you read the stuff that is supposed to be good news but somehow it gets twisted with the glasses you are wearing and it comes off as heavy burdens when it was intended to be joyful invitations. Religion is putting yourself in the centre and asking what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to act when the Bible actually delivers the exact opposite message: put God in the centre! God loves you! God has done for you what you never could do! Relax! Receive His grace and love!!!! And from that position a new life is going to flow out of you and your actions are going to change as your whole outlook on life is changing when you dare to start living as "the Beloved". Every word in the Bible is being seen in a new light. The words that seem harsh like "rebuke" has to be read from this new understanding of who God is and how good He is. Religious people (myself included) have mis-used the Bible and made it sound bad when it is good! "The Lord will rebuke you" is used as a threat when it is actually Good News! Hey, The Lord's rebuke is the best thing that can happen to you! Because He is Good. Even His rebuke is Good. And gentle and tender and loving and joyful and life-giving! The Lord's rebuke is an invitation to repentance = to turn around to God and find our place as His Beloved again, wrapped in His loving arms. The Bible is often using the picture of us as sheep and God as the shepherd. The shepherd is carrying a rod and a staff to rebuke the sheep as they are wandering astray. With the rod He might hit the sheep to call attention to Himself or save the sheep from danger and with the staff He is pulling the sheep into His arms. The whole purpose of the rod and staff is COMFORT.

your rod and your staff, they comfort me

God is

the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,

2 Cor 1:3 So the Lord's rebuke is really comfort! He is rebuking us because we are getting it backwards! He rebukes us tenderly. Hey listen, stop striving! Enter into my rest! Listen: it has been completed, it is finished. Your sin has been paid for!

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for

Is 40:1-2 Then He is raising His voice, not in anger, but it needs to be shouted it and proclaimed:

“Here is your God!”

This is what your God is like, this is how good He is. Don't forget!

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

That last sentence struck me this morning as I have a young one. He is extra gentle with us, fancy that. Sooo good.