Global Harvest

God Responds to Humans

Betty Burton Choate

There are precious identifications with God in the emotions we feel when we are trying to win a soul. As humans, we
are made in Gods image; we have the capacity to feel love,
longing, sorrow yes, what we feel is human-sized, but it is
a very real sharing with what God feels toward those souls!
LONGING And LOVE W
I look at the person with whom I am studying, and I feel acutely the words
of Christ when He said, Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will
come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Revelation 3:20). I call, I text, I invite wanting that person to
open up and let me come in with the words that are the bread
of life. What a beautiful promise Jesus made that if any
of us will open the door and invite Him in, He will come into
our lives and fellowship with us! That is no small promise,
because 1 Corinthians 5:11 and Jude 10 and 11 clearly draw
the lines for fellowship in Christ. It is a precious gift, offered
only to those who invite Him into their lives and then live in
righteous fellowship with Him.
And though our Lord knocks at the door, desiring to come
in and to live with us, He will not beat the door down and
force acceptance. In studying with a soul, we knock and wait
and restrain ourselves from trying to batter the door down.
Acceptance must come willingly from the heart of the hearer.
JOY W Gods expressions of other emotions are
equally strong and poignant. We can think of them in relation to that person who is still out in the world but is being
taught the potential of being one of Gods children, or we
can think of them concerning a child who is becoming prodigal. In either case, reading the biblical words of what God
feels, or feeling within ourselves the human-sized emotions
of Gods involvement, must help us to realize how greatly
humans impact the omnipotent God of the Universe.
Zephaniah 3:17 makes these startling revelations: The
Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you
with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. (1)
The omnipresent God is here, in our midst, not sitting off
in the distant heavens and merely observing what is going
on in the world, as the religions of the East teach. (2) Our

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behavior elicits response from Him: gladness, singing! It

is an amazing thought that the very God of creation can be
moved to joyful singing because of something a mere human
has done! (3) As a caring mother or spouse or friend, when
the ones we love are having a life-challenge, we hover over
them, soothing and comforting. This inspired verse says that
Gods love moves Him to offer the same gentle support.
Jesus is the Word (John 1:1-3,14)
TEARS W
of the Godhead. We know that He wept at the death of His
friend Lazarus but the poignant wording of Luke 19:41 helps
us to see more of His heart: Now as He drew near, He saw
the city and wept over it....
Why was He crying? Because this was the city of God,
the city where the temple had housed the Ark of the Covenant,
the city especially selected and blessed with Gods guidance
and presence; but it was also the city whose spiritual leaders
blinded themselves to the coming of their true King. In His
ability to look down through time and to see the horrors that
lay ahead for Jerusalem, Jesus grief brought bitter tears washing through the description of her destruction by Rome:
If you had known, even you, especially in this your
day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are
hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when
your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you,
and your children within you, to the ground; and they will
not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did
not know the time of your visitation.
We, too, cry over those who are brought to the Saviors
cross but then turn away in rejection.
PLEADING W How many times have we, as humans seeing a grave error being made by one of our children or by somebody outside the faith whom we were trying
to teach reasoned and pleaded, trying to help them see the
consequences that would follow their actions? In Jeremiah
44:3, God spoke of the unfaithfulness of Israel in their worship of the pagan deities around them. He said, ... I have
sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and
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sending them, saying, Oh, do not do this abominable thing
that I hate! His description of rising early and sending
warning shows the urgency in His desire to turn them from
their infidelity, and how often would we plead with tears,
Oh, do not do this...?
Through the proPARENTAL TRAINING W
phet Hosea, God described His patient and gentle care for His
people: When Israel was a child, I loved him.... I taught
Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; but they did
not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords,
with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the
yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them... But in response to their disobedience and idolatry, God cried, How
can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? ... My heart churns within Me... (Hosea 11:1,3,4,8).
We cannot read these words without feeling in our own
hearts all the emotions we know toward our own children,
or toward the ones to whom we would give spiritual birth
through the Gospel the love, the patience in helping them
to take their first stumbling steps, the kissing of the wounds
when they fall, the gentleness and love with which we lead
them along, easing their burdens whenever we can, even
bending down to their little heights to provide whatever care
they need. God used these very words to describe His emotionally-induced provisions for His children. But in Israels
disobedience that required correction, what strong words
God used to describe what the thought of that punishment
did to His own heart: it churned within Him!
KINDNESS, PITY, PATIENCE W I s a i a h
wrote of the way God dealt with His people: I will mention
the lovingkindnesses of the Lord and the praises of the Lord,
according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us, and the
great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has
bestowed on them according to His mercies, according to the
multitude of His lovingkindnesses (Isaiah 63:7).
For He said, Surely they are My people, children who
will not lie. So He became their Savior. In all their affliction
He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them;
in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore
them and carried them all the days of old (Isaiah 63:7-9).
Notice the descriptive words: lovingkindness, goodness, mercies words of endurance because of enduring
love. Notice also the words used to describe how God served
as their Savior: He felt their affliction, He sent the Angel of
His Presence to save them from their overwhelming challenges, He redeemed them because of His love for them and
because of His pity. And when they were struggling through
mire that would have overwhelmed them, He picked them

God responds.indd 2

Global Harvest
up and carried them to safety. These are the protective emotions we feel for those who are young in years or young in
the faith, and who need our help.
OUTREACH, SIN, PUNISHMENT, CORRECIn the wording of Gods testimony in Isaiah
TION W
65:2,3, we can hear His heartbreak over the disobedience
of Israel, like the heartache we feel when our child or
someone we are trying to bring to God takes the wrong
road that we know will end in disaster: I have stretched
out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk
in a way that is not good, according to their own thoughts;
a people who provoke Me to anger continually to My face.
Gods anger is not simply because He wants us to do one
thing and we decide to do the opposite. His anger is the demanded result of His inherent justness, and a just God must
correct sin if the sinner will allow himself to be corrected.
In human likeness, we bristle in anger to flagrant disobedience and, for the ultimate good of our child, we reach out in
loving correction. God explains the purpose of the correction He administers: For I am with you, says the Lord,
to save you... I will not make a complete end of you. But I
will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether
unpunished (Jeremiah 30:11).
PLEA FOR REPENTANCE W In response to disobedience and the corrective punishment God had to administer, He held out the promise of forgiveness and restoration:
Now, therefore, says the Lord, Turn to Me with all your
heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So
rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord
your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm
(Joel 2:12,13). We can hear Gods pleading: Turn to Me
Rend your heart Return to your God....
Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and pity
His people (Joel 2:18).
The result? Then you
FORGIVENESS W
shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the Lord
your God and there is no other. My people shall never be
put to shame (Joel 2:27).
We humans were made in the image of God, according
to Genesis 2:26. In our relationships with fellow-humans, we
experience the gamut of emotions our love and longing and
joy and pain and even our anger. How much more deeply do
we feel our relationship with our God when we are continually conscious of the fact that we cause in Him a magnified
measure of our own emotions, His response to our behavior.
I want to bring joy to Gods heart, as those obedient
>
ones that I love bring overwhelming joy to mine.

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