Affected

i have been trying to catch up on a beth moore bible study that i started last fall and then started working a new job and couldn't go anymore. so i have taken it on by myself. so today as i was sitting at cambridge while there was an open house at my own home, God chose to reveal this to me about his character...

He is a God who is  affected by His people. 

when He chose to love us, He chose pain in knowing that we would inevitably let Him down. in exodus 33 God is so angry that the israelites worshiped a golden calf that He tells them He will send them into the promised land without Him. He would still give them everything else and they would even be given an angel to go with them, but they would not have His presence. 

but moses, fearing the loss of God's presence begs Him. moses is desperate and says: 

"...You have said, 'I know you by name and you have also found favor in my sight.' now therefore, if i have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that i may know you in order to find favor in your sight. ...if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. for how shall it be known that i have found favor in your sight, i and your people? is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, i and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?"    --exodus 33:12-13, 15-16

and what does the Lord say?

"this very thing that you have spoken i will do, for you have found favor in my sight and i know you by name."   --exodus 33:17

but God, not doing anything that isn't first and foremost for His glory, loves us despite ourselves. He is personal, intentional and close...not because we've done something to deserve it...not because there is something awesome about us that God just can't get enough of (I mean, He just keeps getting manipulated into loving us after it all!)

absolutely not! He is affected because that's what makes Him God. He is loving and personal because an all-omniscient God "shouldn't" care about creation. but He created us to  care about us. because that's what gets Him the glory.

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