Thursday, December 16, 2010

The God Who Cares


Psa 68:4 Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.
Psa 68:5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
Psa 68:6 God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.


One slam against Christianity and our God by the atheists; "Why would a loving God allow so much suffering?"

I think it is a fair question considering the close-mindedness of those who claim to be so open-minded. I suppose you really don't have to be a skeptic to have had the same thought pass through your mind on occasion.

The easy answer is sin. God is not willing that hell be populated with people, that innocents suffer, that natural disasters ravage the landscapes. But these are all due to cause and effect. Creation groans because sin is rampant. Civilizations suffer because they have forgotten God. Innocents are in hardship because guilty people have behaved badly.

But God does not ignore the cries of the fatherless, the widows, the lonely and the incarcerated. He sits high on the throne, cognizant of the trouble occurring down here below.

He is sure to reward and recompense all the righteous of their sorrow. A special place exists in the heart of the Holy for the orphans, the abandoned, the left-behind, the captive and those left with nowhere to turn but Heaven.

You see, He knows all about it, He's been there. On a cold Bethlehem night, God was born into this world to a peasant couple, the comforts of a home exchanged for an animal stall. Agonizing In the garden, He prayed alone while his friends slept. When He was arrested, His disciples scattered, except for Peter, who denied Him. He spent the night in kangaroo court and in jail…alone. When He hung on the cross, His followers were nowhere to be found, save John and a few women. As He looked toward heaven and called upon His Father, He was forsaken, because God could not countenance our sin that He bore.

Therefore, because He knows the pain of rejection, because He was a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief, He sees to it that His children will never be forsaken and left all alone.

He is a God who sees and hears and knows and cares and acts on the behalf of all who call upon Him. In fact, that’s why He came to the manger. To be Immanuel, God with us. So that He would experience the human condition, to relate to your loneliness, your poverty, your sickness, your temptation, your emotions.

Are your hurting? His phone number begins... "Our Father which art in heaven" and ends... "In Jesus' name I pray, Amen!"

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