And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
Exodus 34:6-7
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The passage above in Exodus is a huge event in the history of man. It’s an event, a real story and situation, where God reveals His character to His people with words of His own. We are aware of who God is, but many question what is God truly like? In this passage of the Old Testament, God tells us directly about the wonderful characters of Himself. He tells us that He is slow to anger. He is compassionate, and His presence is filled with grace and joy. He forgives all of our sins and the wicked ways of our flesh. I love thinking about God’s tenderness in the verses above. But it also goes on to state that God is a very just God. He loves Holy righteousness, and He fights against the ways of the wicked.
v.7 “Yet He does not leave at the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
This part can overwhelm me at times, but rather than seeing God as a spite-filled Lord of all (for we know that’s not the case with Him providing our redeemer, Jesus Christ); we can choose to look at this and see how much He loves and fights for the oppressed. He fights against those who are filled with deceit and wicked with intent. Those that go way against His ways to hurt His own innocent children (whether these be young or old, black or white), He fights for them all by bringing justice to this world. So in this day in age when we see evil after evil happening to innocent individuals in this world, when we see babies being separated from their mothers and fathers, and attacks being made on innocent citizens.. We can fight with God and be a Light in this present day.
Exodus goes on to tell us the boldness of Moses, and how he pleaded with God to have mercy on all of Israel’s hardened souls:
Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshipped. 9 “Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.”
So how do we bring this light into this very apparent darkness? How do we fight for the justice along side of God and His Kingdom? We pray. We pray for enemies (see Matthew 5:43-48). We pray for the persecuted alongside of their persecutors, that they each would find Jesus, that they each would find Hope and that they each would find God’s Goodness in all the days to come.
So let us pray today for God to continuously give us abounding love, compassion and grace even amidst our enemies. Let us pray today for forgiveness of our wrong doings instead of being quick to point out the flaws of our neighbors, and let us pray for all the evil in the world that is becoming so very apparent. That God would be slow to anger, abounding in love and just to all the nations on earth, to all mankind near and far.
With Love,
Hope Ministries
