JUDGEMENT AND LOVE
Jeremiah 29:1-32
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
If God did not reveal himself and explain himself I very much doubt anyone would imagine him in this way. Yet when we understand it, it makes perfect sense.
As one of those listening to Jeremiah’s message from God, I would have asked, “why then did you allow Jerusalem and the Temple’s destruction? Why did you allow such upheaval and suffering to take place?”
In my mind, judgement and love are at odds. If there is judgement then there is no love; if there is love then judgement must be set aside. I cannot comprehend a God who thoroughly destroyed the fabric of my nation and community and then tells me with all sincerity that he knows what he is doing and that he continues to plan for my welfare and future. I cannot imagine that in all the destruction there was no malice; that love still remains. I cannot imagine that in judgement there is also love and in love judgement must exist as well.
God, through Jeremiah, makes it clear that the judgement was his will (I banished you, I carried you into exile) and his love and good intentions remained intact (“When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”). Therefore embrace my judgement and wait for my love to surface once again.
Modern Christianity very often pays lip service to judgement while emphasising God’s love and redemption. Such a god is only a god of our making, and not the God of the universe. Judgement without love would only lead to destruction. Love without judgement would only compromise God. Judgement with love brought us calvary.
The prosperity gospel, movements that emphasise power and claim to speak and act on behalf of God miss out the crucial element: God’s agenda and not ours. The bible leaves us in no doubt that God is locked in a battle to rid the world of sin: its agents, its influence and effects. Revelation does not glow with descriptions of how much healing and wealth and pleasure that exists ever since Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. We all desire the power of God, but not for the purposes of God.
Through Jeremiah, God tells the Jews, “I am true to my word. My word is not mere whim and fancy, to be set aside whenever I so choose; it is truth on which the whole fabric of your existence is built. If you go against my word then you will suffer my wrath. At the same time I have chosen to love you and I am also true to that choice. My intentions for you as a people are for your welfare so that you have a hope and a future. Therefore listen to the truth that I tell you, and not the lies you wish to hear.”
The question is, who is the God that we would recognise, who is the God that we will find: The angry, wrathful God bent on punishing every wrong, the loving God who serves your every whim and fancy, or this wonderful God who is true—true to his word, true to his standards, true to his promises, true to his love—substantial, fascinating, thoroughly good, utterly dependable.
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.