When God created this world, he did it with an explicit purpose. He wanted to have communion with His creation. To praise and worship Him and have joy and happiness for eternity. Colossians 1:16 “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:” He created people in his image so that they could share in his overflowing love, grace, and goodness through their relationship. God did not need the world or people because God has no lack.
Things were soured by sin. Tragically sin brings death. A loving God could not tolerate this. He thus devised the plan of restoration, so that humanity could go back to square one. The desire of God is for restoration with all who have wandered away from him, with those who have sinned egregiously against him, and with those whose adoration he ought never to have lost. This is his will and his desire: God wants the sick and broken to be healed.
Hosea prophesied, that in the person of Jesus, God has come like the rain to a dry land, and his heart invites sinners to return to him. Hosea 6:6 “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” Because he wants it and does not want any to be lost. God wants the sick and broken to be healed. He wants the lost, the rebellious, and the apostate to come back home. He could demand sacrifice. He could demand appeasement, payment, and restitution. But instead, he wants our return and shows mercy.
The Hebrew word for “desire” used in Hosea 6:6 and quoted by Jesus means to be pleased with something, to want it, to delight in it. God’s desire for mercy and not sacrifice is from the bottom of the heart about something he truly wants. In so many ways, we struggle to understand this. Even when we return to God and repent of our sins, we come apologetically, ashamed. Even as children of God, we so often come cringing. Yet God wants us. That’s why the way to him is open. Because it is his desire for us to be restored to the desired relationship with him.
When the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners they were offended. More than that, they felt Jesus was offending God. He was throwing in his lot with sinners and apostates. In fact, Jesus was calling those sinners and apostates home, and he was doing it in the name of God and according to the desire of His Father. He was sharing his own life with them so that they might find their way home again. The God of the Bible never asks anyone to atone for their own sins. Never once does he demand some great act of appeasement or penance. His summons to sinners is always the same: repent from the heart, and return. Come back to God.
II Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Dr Ashwin Drummond
Laddertoheaven.co.in