Podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Anchor!
I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed...
Anyone had that line thrown at them growing up? It stings, doesn't it? We can easily feel like we've fallen out of someone's good graces when we've disappointed them.
Or maybe you just can't look at someone the same way after being so painfully let down. The relationship has changed and you can't seem to come back from that disappointment.
Our loved ones disappoint us, we disappoint them. We are fickle and relationships change.
Thankfully, God is not like us.
Although sin stirs His anger, His love for us CAN. NEVER. CHANGE.
Here's why:
1. God is omniscient
(All-knowing)
Meaning, He knows all that has happened, is happening, and will happen. God knows it all. Which means He created us knowing we would fall short of His standards.
...for all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
- Romans 3:23
And yet God chooses to heal and forgive you!
He delights over you with gladness! He will calm all your fears and rejoice over you with song.
- Zephaniah 3:17
Despite knowing your worst, God chooses to bless you and include you in His good plans to bless others!
In love [God] chose us before He laid the foundation of the universe! Because of His great love, He ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in His eyes with an unstained innocence.
- Ephesians 1:4
God sees us from a divine perspective
This is significant, so don't miss this!
When we surrender our lives to Jesus, His glory is magnified in our lives, and He forgives our wickedness and remembers our sins no more. (Hebrews 8:12)
Friends, He doesn't even remember our sins! How can God be omniscient AND also forget our sin?
Because He chooses to see Jesus' atoning work on the cross to redeem us instead!
An omniscient God can be trusted to know that Jesus' sacrifice truly is the best plan of salvation imaginable. We couldn't come up with something better if we had a thousand lifetimes to try.
Thinking that we could add or take away from God's love for us, implies that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough to save us. But it was! And because of it, we are enough in God's sight too.
We are enough for Him, solely because Jesus is enough for us.
Isaiah 53:10 says that it actually pleased God to crush Jesus and cause Him grief through death. It was through Jesus that God's purpose was to be accomplished: the salvation of our souls. So all of God's wrath reserved for sin was fully absorbed in Jesus on the cross.
But what does this mean in our daily lives?
Do we carry on sinning so that God's kindness and grace will increase? (Romans 6:1) That's a hard NO!
Sin dies with us when we surrender our lives to Jesus. Though we still fight against sin, God's omniscience means He knows what we are and He loves us the same - on our best days, and our worst.
What's more, our FEELINGS do not disappoint Him because He created us to feel each one in response to something we experience.
Maybe you're confused, frustrated, hurt, disillusioned, or even jaded by what God is doing or NOT doing.
I'm convinced He is more disappointed when we hide our true feelings from Him, rather than just being honest with Him and ourselves about our struggle to trust and surrender.
Doubting Thomas? More like, Confident-Faith Thomas!
Consider how Thomas in John 20 wanted physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection. When Jesus finally appeared to Thomas and the disciples, He greeted them all, but He addressed Thomas directly. Jesus invited Thomas to reach out and touch His wounds. He encourages him to stop doubting and believe.
Have you ever noticed that there is no record of Thomas actually touching Jesus? Yet Jesus' invitation was there. He offered the tangible opportunity to dispel Thomas' doubts because Jesus knew Thomas, and He knows us.
He knows we are prone to doubt. He knows it is sometimes hard for us to trust. He isn't disappointed with how we might feel.
But perhaps the assurance of faith that Thomas so desperately wanted is exactly what Jesus honoured by allowing him to explore for himself.
Perhaps Jesus wants to see that in all of us. Echoing author Angie Smith: like Thomas, we don't question God because we want to prove He doesn't exist, we question because we want to rest in unshakable faith!
So we can freely wrestle through those doubts, trust issues, and ugly emotions with God without fear of disappoint Him or losing His love.
2. God is unstoppable
At the end of Job's tragic but redemptive life, Job tells God:
I know that You can do anything. No one can keep You from doing what You plan to do.
- Job 42:2
Other translations say that God's plans could never be: thwarted or withheld, frustrated, restrained, ruined or hindered.
WOW! Whatever God wants to do, whatever He wants to accomplish on this earth, in your life, in your family, in your character, in your destiny... it. will. happen. It cannot be stopped. God cannot be stopped. Because God's plans always come to fruition.
There is nothing we could do to ruin what God has put into motion before the foundations of the earth. The hard truth? We're just not that powerful - and that's a good thing!
A line from the song I'll be sharing at the end says:
I'll never be more loved than I am right now. Wasn't holding You up, so there's nothing I can do to let You down.
Coming to terms with how small we are in the presence of a Holy God should humble us. But realizing how loved we are, how good His plans are, what He gave up to save us, should draw us all the closer to Him too!
Because only He can heal brokenness, pain, rejection, and sin. Only He can do it. His plans cannot be stopped. And neither can His love for us.
3. God is immutable
(Does not change)
God has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change, He would need to go from better or worse or from worse to better. He cannot do either. For being perfect, He cannot become more perfect, and if He were to become less than perfect, He would be less than God.
A. W. Tozer
Here's the connection:
If God does not change, His thoughts towards us don't change either. We are loved fully and completely in every moment.
The psalmist says in Psalm 139:17
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
Let's conclude with some of God's unchanging thoughts towards you:
- You are chosen (1 Peter 2:9)
- You are treasured (Deuteronomy 14:2)
- You are protected (Psalm 121:3)
- You are His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10)
- You are free (John 8:31)
- You are forever loved (Jeremiah 31:3)
What's in the Ears
This line of the song bears repeating:
Wasn't holding you up, so there's nothing I can do to let you down.
Friend, you can put down that burden. You can let go of that pressure. You can stop trying to avoid disappointing God through perfect performance. He can take it. You're not fooling Him because He already knows. He wants you to admit your weakness so you could finally accept His sufficient grace. For His power is made perfect in your weakness. And we can boast in our weaknesses and struggles, because that is where God's power dwells. In the parts of our lives that feel like a disappointment, that's where His power can manifest most.
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