"The Gentle Loving Grace of God" by Jeff Godsown

Psa 119:126  It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.

Psa 119:127  Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

Psa 119:128  Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.

Have you ever found yourself getting caught up in such a deep want for the Lord and His ways, that you fail to see, you’ve targeted someone who seems to refuse to teach God’s truth, and unknowingly turned them into an enemy?  I have and I’m not ashamed to admit it, if this helps just one person realize, how easy it is to turn into something you despise.  I hunger for the under-leadership of God’s church to teach nothing but God’s truth of His Word and when it’s not taught, it angers and frustrates me to no end.  I’m very familiar with some leadership who twist the truth of God’s Word, when teaching it, what I didn’t realize was inside my spirit, I was turning this person into a personal enemy.  So, here’s how this worked for me, it didn’t matter who was teaching, if they weren’t teaching rightly, I saw this person’s face, instead of the one who was teaching. This is a serious flaw in me, "but God” in all His tender loving grace, in chastising me, gently touched me in my spirit man and spoke and showed me what I was doing.  The one thing that really stuck out for me, I was being chastised, yet I could sense God’s love and tenderness.  This is nothing like what I have come to expect of the Great Big God, whom I should fear, this was totally different.  This was an up close, very personal, show me what I was doing and where it was headed, Father to son, tender, gentle moment.  Rom 14:13  Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

Rom 14:14  I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

What I have deemed as unclean, I was beginning to become boisterous enough about, to even say who I’m referring to, thus throwing out there for others to trip over, a stumbling block.

     The most remarkale thing to be faced with your own foolishness, and God so tender, so loving, brings correction in such a gentle manner.  This just shows me, at least for myself, we don’t understand the depths of God’s love, nor do we understand just how gentle He is to those who want nothing more than to please Him.  There are no words that I know of that can truly express the tenderness and love I felt in God’s chatizement of me.  Rom 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

Eph 3:17  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

Eph 3:18  May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

Eph 3:19  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

God the Father is someone to fear and even more to revere, how gentle the loving grace of God.  It is my hope that somehow, someone is touched by this, and when God comes to you in this manner, you also will turn from heading in the wrong direction.  May God be blessed in all things and may you be blessed of God, to come to the knowledge of His tender, gentle loving grace as I have.