The Greeks believed God cannot have emotions because, if He did and if we are the cause of His emotions – whether grief, anger, sorrow, love, or dismay – then to that extent we would have power over God and control Him. That may be reasonable as philosophy, but it is not the Bible’s teaching. The Bible says that God grieves over sin and rejoices when a sinner is reclaimed. Jesus makes this explicit in Matthew 18.10-14, saying in the parable of the great shepherd, “He is happier about that one sheep [that is found] than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.” The fact is, God rejoices when we repent and return to Him.
Category: Heads Up (Page 6 of 36)
Articles written by Pastor Steve for the White Mountain Independent newspaper
We said last week that it is not the angels who are important in Matthew 18.10-14. They may be interceding on behalf of weak or wandering Christians, an encouraging thing to know. But what is really important here is that God is compared to the shepherd who seeks and finds the lost sheep.
Bunnies, easter eggs and baskets? Many images in the Bible convey the protecting care of God for His people, but probably no image is more greatly loved than that of the shepherd and His sheep. What Christian can consider God as a shepherd without thinking of the Twenty-third Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”? Or the tenth chapter of John, where Jesus applies the image to Himself: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”?
“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” (Matthew 18.7-9)
In the first three verses of Matthew 18, Jesus uses children as examples of humility, which He demands of those who would be saved. In the next two verses, however, He seems to think of children not in terms of their humility but as those who are weak or helpless. He is not thinking of children literally, however.
What was it that Shakespeare wrote? “Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Pity the disciples! They were with true greatness in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was great as only God is great. They were not. They had not been born great. They had not achieved greatness. They had not had greatness thrust upon them. Yet they wanted so much to be great.