he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
Isaiah 30:18
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This was my devotional reading recently.
I could not get my head around why or how God's great desire to 'be gracious to' Israel is in any way connected to Him being a God of justice, which is what the verse explicitly says.
I thought, if justice had anything to do with it, God should smite the Israelites since that is what they 'justly' deserved , didn't they ? (read the entire context of the chapter HERE to see what was going on with Israel at the time).
After praying and asking God to give me His wisdom, He did ! He showed me that it must have to do with the fact that God has covenantally bound Himself to Israel so that it would in fact be unjust if He wasn't seeking to show them 'hanan' every day. God is so great and wonderful !!Ah, but are they (or are we) ready to receive it ?
"Blessed are all who wait for him!"
Response : I wait for you, Lord.
God's covenantal binding of Himself to His people is paralleled in Christ and through Christ :
"[25]Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [26]to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, [27]and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. [28]In this same
way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29]After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— [30] for we are members of his body. [31]"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united
to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."[32]This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. [33]However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
Ephesians 5:25-33
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