Waist Deep 2018 - January 25

Exodus 34: 6, 7 “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” (NIV)

Numbers 14: 18 The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (NIV)

Psalm 86: 15 But you, O lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. (NIV)

Psalm 103: 8, 10 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. . . . [H]e does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (NIV)

God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.*

Interviewing for a job challenges our ability to balance just the right amount of modesty with a healthy dose of self-confidence. We can be proud of our accomplishments but we don’t want to come across as over-confident . . . unless we have God’s résumé. Yes, the verse quoted above from Exodus, contains God’s words about himself. I can picture the bullet-points on God’s résumé listing his strengths (no weaknesses!): 

• Compassionate 
• Gracious 
• Slow to anger 
• Abounding in love and faithfulness 
• Forgiving sin and rebellion 

But, in the interest of full disclosure, he adds: 

• Does not leave the guilty unpunished 

If the verses in Exodus are his résumé, then the verses in Numbers and Psalms are his references, verifying and attesting to his character. The psalmist is careful to say only good things but the “reference” from the book of Numbers is brutally honest, listing all the wondrous attributes of God then scrupulously including the qualifier: he does not leave the guilty unpunished. 

If this were a real résumé, the applicant would now have to go on to explain how such contradictory attributes can live in the same person. It could be a rather lengthy document, say about the size of the Old and New Testaments, but it might be condensed for the sake of the résumé: “God does not leave the guilty unpunished but we are no longer guilty because of the blood of Jesus.”* 

A pretty impressive résumé! Now we have all the information we need to determine that he is the only qualified applicant for the job!

The most wonderful truth revealed in all of the word of God is that mercy stands higher than the law as the guiding principle of God's relationship with men.*